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A STUDY OF DOLLS 



G. STANLEY HALL 

AND 

A. CASWELL ELLIS 

Of Clark University 




NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO. 



Copyright, 1897, by 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 

NEW YORK 



H Stub? of 2)oll8. 



By A. Caswell Ellis and G. Stanley Hall. 

Dolls have so long been one of the chief toys of 
children, and are now so nearly universal among both 
savage and civilized peoples, that it is singular that no 
serious attempt has ever been made to study them. 
The topic of this paper is not only relatively new, but 
the field it opens is one of vast complexity, many sided 
interest and of the greatest significance, both for psy- 
chology and pedagogy. When a thoughtful mother 
asks what is the best form, size, material, amount of 
elaborateness or mechanical devices, dress, parapher- 
nalia, degree of abandon in doll play, proper and im- 
proper imitations of human life, whether doll play was 
instinctive with, and good for boys as well as girls, or 
for any generalizations concerning dolls' names, doll 
families, dolls' diseases, the age at which the doll in- 
stinct is strongest, when it legitimately declines, 
whether paper dolls precede, follow, or co-exist with 
dolls of three dimensions, doll anatomy, doll psychol- 
ogy, the real source of the many instincts that are ex- 
pressed in doll play, its form among savage races, 
whether it is related to idolatry, and if so, how; — for 
^ answer to nearly all these problems, one would search 
the meager and fragmentary doll literature in vain. 
Indeed, this paper, imperfect as it is, is the first to call 



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A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



attention to the importance of a strangely neglected, 
new, but exceedingly rich psychogenetic field. 

It was considerations Hke these that led one of us 
(G. S. H.), after a careful preliminary survey, based on 
informal examinations of many children of different 
ages, in which he was greatly aided by Miss Sara E. 
Wiltse, to print and circulate among about eight hun- 
dred teachers and parents the following questionnaire: 

The data desired are juvemle feelings, acts, or thoughts 
toward any object which represents a baby or a child. 

1. Describe your dolls and get children to do the -same; 
whether of wax, rags, paper, pasteboard, rubber, china, 
wood, stone, etc., and give instances where clothes-pins, nails, 
bottles, vegetables, sticks, flowers, keys, button-hooks, etc., 
have been regarded as dolls in any respect or in any de- 
gree. 

2. Feeding. What foods, liquid, or solid, and how are they 
given? Describe imaginary foods, dishes, spoons, and other 
utensils. Is there any regularity or system in feeding, and are 
hunger, starvation, food preferences, or growth imagined? 

3. Medicines, diseases. What diseases, pains, symptoms are 
imagined? How is sympathy shown? What drugs are given? 
Ho'W, and with what conceptions. Imaginary doll doctors, 
their visits and functions. Surgical operations, etc. 

4. What constitutes the death of a doll? » Funeral services, 
and burial of dolls. When lost or crushed do children as- 
sume a future life for the doll, and does this assuage their 
grief? 

5. Give details of psychic acts and qualities ascribed to 
dolls, and show how real, hoW treated, etc., are their feelings 
of cold, fatigue, anger, pain, jealously, love, hate,^ goodness, 
arid badness, modesty, tidiness, etc. Is any individuality or 
are oral or other characters consistently and persistently as- 
cribed to dolls? 

6. Dolls' names. Are they of real persons, and, if so, is 
there any resemblance, real or fancied? 

7. Accessories and furnishings, toilet articles, clothes, beds, 
tables, and dishes, trunks, fashion and its changes, toys for 
the doll, etc. How far in fact are these carried, and ho^w far 
should they be? What dangers if any here? 

8., Doll families, and the relationship of the members? 
doll schools, doll parties, balls, entertainments, wed- 
dings. 

9. Doll discipline, hygiene, and regimen. What toilet and 
what rewards and punishments are usual, and what moral, 
qualities are aimed at? 



A StUDY OF DOLLS. 



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10. Doll's sleep. How are they, put to sleep? What are 
the favorite lullabies, and does tlie doll's sleep keep the 
children good and quiet? 

11. Dress. What is the influence of dolls upon the children? 
Can taste in dress, tidiness, thoroughness in making their 
clothes, or other moral, qualities be cultivated. How does 
the material of which the doll is made and the degree of life 
like perfection react on the child? Is there regularity and 
persistency in the care of dolls? Is imagination best stim- 
ulated by rude dolls, which can be more freely and roughly 
used? Are children better morally, religiously, socially, or 
better prepared for parentalhood and domestic life by them? 
How can the educational value of dolls be better brought out? 

The above points are intended to be merely suggestive, 
and are of course far more comprehensive than any returns 
are expected to be. 

Read this syllabus and write down with accuracy any facts 
which memory or observation may suggest, carefully specify- 
ing age, sex, and nationality. 

Or, if practical, question children, or if in a normal school, 
let teachers take this syllabus as a lesson on the blackboard 
in the psychology of childhood, and each record memory or 
observation. 

Returns addressed as below will be carefully edited, 
credited, printed. 

G. STANLEY HALL. 

Clark University, 

Worcester, Mass., Nov.^ 1894. 

This brought the follrwirg returns : Miss Lillie Wil- 
liams, State normal school, New Jersey, 203 papers; 
St. George's high school, Edinburgh, Scotland, 67; 
from Miss Jenny Merrill, New York city, 53; N. Y., 
105; Miss S. E. Wiltse, 2.6; Miss Mary White, 18; and 
176 from miscellaneous sources, making in all 648. 
Theseretums wereof very varied degrees of merit. Some 
were long letters of reminiscence by adults, others 
were observations by mothers and others, of the doll 
history of individual children. Others were school 
compositions by pupils of high and normal schools; 
94 boys are reported on, the rest are girls; 96 are re- 
miniscence, the majority of all were written by females 
between 14 and 24. Altogether, this constituted a 
stack of thousands of pages of manuscript. After a 
considerable time spent by both of us in a preliminary 



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A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



survey of this material, it was decided that, intractable 
as it was, and lacking in uniformity, it merited as care- 
ful a statistical treatment as could be given it, and this 
laborious task was finally undertaken by one of us (A, 
C. E.), who also conducted quite a voluminous corres- 
pondence, gathered the literary references with careful 
epitomes thereof, selected and condensed typical cases 
from the returns, preserving every salient phrase and 
incident, and issued the following supplementary sylla- 
bus to get better statistical results: 

Will each person receiving this, kindly answer, brief- 
ly, on this paper and return it to the address below? 
State age and sex, 

I. Did you ever play with dolls? 2. Did you specially enjoy 
it? 3. At about what age did you begin and stop? Age in 
figures. 4. Did you ever play with paper dolls ? 5, At what 
age did you begin and stop ? 6. Did paper dolls dull your 
interest for other dolls ? 7. Did you ever play with anything 
else as a doll, such as a cat, pillow, vegetable, stick, clothes- 
pin, etc.; either dressed or without dress ? 8, Did you en- 
joy this as much as your real dolls ? 9. Had you plenty of 
child co-mp anions ? 10. Did you prefer playing with dolls 
alone or with ctlicr children ? ir. Did you prefer old and 
well-used or new dolls ? 12. Between the ages of one and 
six did you prefer large or small dolls ? 13. From one to 
five did you prefer your doll to be, and be dressed as, a baby, 
child, or adult ? 16. Did your love of dolls grow out* of love 
for a real baby ? 17. When you stopped playing- dolls was 
it because your love was transferred to a real baby ? 18. > Why 
did you stop playing dolls? 19. Describe your favorite 
doll, or any other, if you had no favorite ? 20. How did you 
chiefly punish dolls when you were under six? 21. How 
when older ? 22. At what age did you first play that dolls 
died ? 23. Did you ever try to feed dolls ? 24. Did you ever 
think your dolls were hungry ? 25. Did you ever think your 
dolls were sick ? 26. Did you ever think your dolls were 
cold, tired, hungry, good, bad, jealous, loving you, hating 
any one ? 27. Which of the following ways of playing with 
dolls were your favorites; (i), Dressing and washing, or 
sewing for dolls; (2), Feeding; (3), Nursing; (4), Funerals 
or burials; (5), Doll parties, weddings or schools; (6), Punish- 
ing; (7), Putting to sleep; (8), Making imaginary companions 
of your dolls to talk with and tell your^ secrets, or to build 
air castles with ? 28. Do you know a mother now very fond 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



7 



of her children who was not fond of dolls as a girl? 
39. Do you know a woman who was very fond of dolls but 
is not now venr fond of children? 

A. CASWELL ELLIS, 
Clark University, 

Worcester, Mass, 

June I, 1896. 

I|i answer to this returns were received from many 
sources, as indicated in table I. 

A large part of these returns coming from abnormal or 
very young children, they required a deal of patient and 
pains-taking labor on the part of the teachers reporting, and 
special thanks are due Miss Jenny Merrill and the ladies 
^^ho assisted her with the work among the foreign children 
in New York; to Miss Veits, Miss Micks, Miss Streefer and 
others who worked with the youngest children in Worcester 
schobls; to Miss Aborn and others of the Boston Practice 
school for sinnlar work; to Miss Fuller and her staff for 
returns from the deaf and dumb; to Dr. Anagnos, Miss 
Lilley and others for work done in Perkins Institute and in 
the kindergarten for blind at Jamaica Plains; and to Dr. 
Fernald, Miss Sanderson, and other teachers for similar 
assistance among the feeble-minded at Waverly. That this 
statement was omitted in the article as it aoDeared in the 
" Pedagogical Seminary *' is an unfortunate oversight for 
which the present writer apologizes to those who so gener- 
ously and ably assisted him. The only excuse that can be 
offered is that the proof was examined by piecemeal and 
never seen as a whole till after publication. A. C. E. 

These latter returns were given to Dr. Hall, under 
whose supervision they were tabulated, and to whom 

Mr. Ellis's tables, correspondence, digests, conclu- 
sions, suggestions, and everything else were turned 
over, and who must, therefore, bear the responsibility 
of the attempt herewith made to present such account 
of all these varied data as he is able to do under limita- 
tions of both time and space, which are such as leave 
much to be desired. He has also freely added infer- 
ences, data, etc. 



s 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



I. Material of which Dolls are Made, Sub- 

STITUTES, and PROXIES. 

Of 84s children, with 989 preferences, between the 
ages of three and twelve, 191 preferred wax dolls, 163 
paper dolls, 153 china dolls, 144 rag, 116 bisque dolls, 
83 china and cloth, 69 rubber, 12 china and kid, 11 
pasteboard, 7 plaster of paris, 6 wood, 3 knit, with a 
few each for papier-mache, clay, glass, cotton, tin, cel- 
luloid, French, Japanese, brownies, Chinese, sailor, 
negro, Esquimaux, etc. Many children giving several 
as equally desirable, or their preferences have changed 
and many prefer the substitute to the real doll 

We have grouped as substitutes objects used and 
treated by children as if they were dolls. Such treat- 
ment always involves ascribing more or less psychic 
qualities to the object, and treating it as if it were an 
animate or sentient thing. Nothing illustrates the 
strength of the doll instinct and the vigor of the ani- 
mistic fancy like the following list of doll substitutes: 
In answers to the first syllabus,, pillows were treated 
as dolls by 39 children, who often tied strings around 
the middle of the* pillow, using a shawl for the skirt; 
sticks, 29, these j sometimes dressed in flowers, leaves, 
and twisted grass; bottles, 24, filled with different col- 
ored water, and called different people, some with doll 
head corks; cob or ear of corn, 19 (red ears favored, 
corn silk for the hair, a daisy perhaps serving for a 
hat); dogs, 18; cats and kittens, 15, shawls, 14, 
flowers, 12, clothes-pins, 11, (one a sailor, one a 
woman, some times both, used as servants), blocks, 9, 
children, 7, pieces of cloth, 7, daisies, 6 (taking off all 
but two petals, marking eyes, and making grass moth- 
ers), newspapers, 6, stuffed elephants, 6 (seemed like a 
real baby), clothes pegs, 5, peanuts, 5, stick of wood, 5, 
apples, 4, clay pipes, 4, kindergarten material, 4, hand- 
kerchiefs, 4, mud and day, 4, chairs and stools, 3, but- 
tons, 3, potatoes, 3 (one end the head, with eyes, 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



9 



matches used for arms and legs), wish bones, 3, 
ninepins, 3, squashes, 3, toothpicks, 3, vegetables, 3, 
yarn strings, 3. Two each are the following: acorns, 
aprons, bootjacks, feathers, doughnuts, cucumbers, 
spools, shells, ^pumpkins (dressed in own clothes), 
towels (knotted in middle), rubber balls, brooms 
(dressed in bolster case), nails, bed posts, sticks of 
candy (dressed), button-hooks, keys, and umbrellas. 

One each are the following: box, jug, coat, orange 
peel, cribbage peg, chicken, whisk broom, board with 
face painted on it, croquet ball, dish top, finger of a 
person dressed as doll, hand dressed as doll, with 
thumb and finger wrapped up for arms, water bottle, 
celery, one corner of a blanket (the other was mother), 
log, shoe, curtain tassel, roll of batting, bundle from 
the store, turkev wing, named Dinah, washboard (two 
legs, so much like a man), wooden spoon, weed, piece 
of lath, salt bag stuffed, fish (?), piece of Porter-house 
steak (?), sweet potato, stuffed stocking, stuffed cat, 
hitching-post (so dressed up as to scare horses), stick 
of stove wood, tongs, toy monkey, radish, scissors in a 
spool, sheet, shoulder blanket, stone block, spoon, pe- 
tunia (push stem through for head and neck), pin, 
pronged stick (looked like arms and legs), linen book 
rolled up and marked, knife, fork and spoon (called 
servants), knitting-needles, lead-pencil, half-burned 
matches (black for hair), marbles, oranges, penholder, 
beets, grapes (pulps for heads, sphnts for arms and 
legs, set saihng in cucumber boats), geraniums, green 
peaches (with pins for arms and legs), gate posts (by a 
party of children), gourds, hickory nuts, . jiollyhocks, 
horse-chestnuts (pins for arms and legs), cuffs rolled 
up, dress folded, fuchsia, feather, forks, glass, com 
husks, beans, berries, cradle quilt, carrot,, crochet- 
hook, hair-brush, cane, cricket, clamp, carpenter's 
plane, axle of toy cart, a bench, books, balls, bric-a- 
brac, bleeding heart petals are clothes, and the rest a 
lady sailing in rose-leaf boat, with hair of corn silk, bit 
of rope, and of earthen. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



In reply to the supplementary questions, out of 579 
children, 57 had used a cat as a doll, 41 clothes pins, 
26 sticks, 21 vegetables, 20 a pillow. Only 26 of all 
these were boys. 

As an instance of flower dolls, one correspondent writes: I 
often took pansies for dolls because of their human faces; 
the rose i revered too much to play vv^ith, it was like my 
best wax doll, dressed in her prettiest, but always sitting in 
state in a big chair in some secluded comer where little 
visitors would not spy her out. I loved these nature dolls 
far better than the prettiest store dolls and ascribed special 
psychic qualities to them. The hepaticas seemed delicate 
children to be tenderly cared for, but which soon drooped 
and faded. Violets were sturdy little ones which enjoyed a 
frolic and could be played with. The pansy was a wiUing, 
quick, bright flower child, the rose her grown up sister, 
pretty, always charmingly dressed, but a quiet and sedate 
spectator. Violets were shy, good natured children, but 
their pansy cousins were often naughty and would not play. 
The hepaticas were invalids and cripples who watched their 
livelier brothers and sisters and were entertained by stiff 
maiden aunts, marigolds, with long curls.. The dahlias were 
colored servants and mammies; yellow violets mischievous, 
fun-loving boys; sweet peas were the nurses with cap and 
kerchief on; the morning-glories were governesses and 
teachers. I often made little boats to give my flower dolls 
rides on the river We built harbors, but in rough weather 
so many lives were lost that our pleasure was marred. 

In kindergarten, a teacher writes : nothing interests the 
little girls so much as to take sphere, cylinder, or cube, 
wrapping them in handkerchief to have " a baby, " putting 
it into the long box of scond gift for the cradle; the boys 
often share this play. 

A girl of 3 lavished her affection on a rude wooden foot 
stool. It was on end, its legs were arms^ and feet, and it 
was Pressed, named stooly, nursed when sick, taken to bed 
and table, taught to read and write, fed, and various parts 
of the body imagined. A scratch on the joint was a sore. 
A child O'f two did the same with an old red slipper; another 
with a bottle with cork head, eyes, necklace; another with a 
bit of Parian marble; another with a covered brick, till her 
mother fancied living things grew uninteresting. My own 
boy had a long craze for a big stuffed elephant and for a 
stove hook. 

Mud dolls are sometimes sick at first, but when dry 
are well. A shawl doll had no heart, so a ball was 
put in its folds so it could live and love. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



Colored dolls sometimes need no clothing, ''because 
they are so black nobody can see/* A colored doll 
may be specially liked because others hate it, but fair 
hair and blue eyes are the favorites. When detected 
in " doUifying " very intractable objects children often 
show signs of self-consciousness and even shame. Be- 
sides the good and bad looks, dress, etc., of dolls, 
there are other influences that mediate Hkes and dis- 
likes that we are not yet able to explain. A bottle 
resembled its giver and so took his name. Compli- 
mentary or uncomplimentary remarks of others often 
have much to do, but dispraise seems almost as apt to 
increase love as to diminish it. Real or fancied resem- 
blance to people liked or disliked is a factor, and so 
is the feeling for the person who gave the doll, but 
why some dolls get all the whippings and others all 
the favors it is often very hard to ascertain. 

The rudest doll has the great advantage of stimu- 
lating the imagination by giving it more to do than 
does the elaborately finished doll. It can also enter 
more fully into the child's life, because it can be played 
with more freely without danger of being soiled or 
injured. With rude dolls, too, the danger of both 
hypertrophy and of too great prolongation of the doll 
instinct is diminished. As between large and small 
dolls it would appear that dolls of from four to twelve 
inches are more common, and that interest in very 
large and very small dolls is later and less normal. It is 
against large, elegant French dolls which teach love 
of dress and suggest luxury, and against dolls with 
too many mechanical devices, as for winking, walking, 
speaking, and singing, that the Russian Toy Congress 
has so strongly protested. Rather small and durable 
dolls, soft enough not to hurt, flexible, with two or 
three colors and not more than two or three plain 
garments, along with plenty of hints regarding clothes, 
pins, flowers, and other varied material ; — something 
like this seems to be the suggestion for a first doll, with 



12 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



increasing variation in size, material, elaborateness, and 
number till the doll passion vanishes in two dimensions, 
with innumerable paper dolls, towards adolescence., 

Dolls are often said to grow, more commonly large, 
but often when the owner is growing fast the doll 
grows small. A doll that squeaks is said to talk ; a 
coat of paint is a dress ; pictures of dolls sometimes 
take the place of dolls themselves ; new babies are 
sometimes treated as, and even thought to be, dolls ; 
children who have no proxies are few, and those who 
never played with dolls exceedingly rare. For dolls* 
hair, hemp ra veilings, wool, split grass, corn silk, bits 
of fur, shavings, one*s own hair, feathers, hair painted 
on, are used, and combing and dressing dolls' hair is a 
favorite occupation. Toilet accessories for this pur- 
pose are infrequent. Eyes are often made of buttons, 
seeds, pins ; rings are painted or inked on ; the brow 
is less cared for, but eyes that open and shut are 
greatly desired. Although the first feature to appear, 
young children care far less for eyes than for the soft- 
ness and flexibility that appeals to touch. Open eyes 
are sometimes covered with bits of paper when the 
doll sleeps, or "to make it dark." The oldest child 
often cares less for dolls or is interested in them later 
than the younger children. Dolls may lose the head, 
limbs or body, and if they are replaced, generally, 
though not always, retain their identity. The first 
doll is sometimes remembered with peculiar interest. 
The function of joints suggests several interesting 
psychological problems, regarding movement, will, 
expression, etc. A doll that can be taken everywhere as 
well as treated every way is a sure favorite. Cut-out 
pictures of the most varied things play an important 
role. Interest in school and books has an important 
influence on the doll passion, often eliminating it. 
Almost every conceivable whim and freak is illustrated 
here. Dolls that can be washed all over are often 
favorites. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



13 



Children are often under a long delusion concerning 
the material of which dolls are made. Even long 
after it is known that they are wood, wax, etc., it is 
felt that they are of skin, flesh, etc. To find a doll's 
head hollow or that it is sawdust, while it suggests to 
very young children the same as contents of their own 
body, is with older children a frequent source of dis- 
enchantment and sometimes marks the sudden end of 
the doll period. In some cases allowances for the 
doll's moral or physical disabilities are made on 
account of the material of which they are found to 
consist. Wooden dolls will not bend ; so are obstinate. 
Babies are differentiated as "meat dolls,*' but the 
differences of temperature are noted with strange 
rarity. It is singular how slowly and late children learn 
what the "hard things" under their own skin (bones) 
are, and how easily, after a trifling injury, they think 
the body a bag of blood, or somehow get the impres- 
sion that they are blown up and grow by inflation, or 
are themselves full of sawdust or of stomach, which 
fills even arms and legs. Discussions with skeptical 
brothers, who assert that the doll is nothing but wood, 
rubber, wax, etc., are often met with a resentment as 
keen as that vented upon missionaries who declare 
that idols are but stocks and stones, or, to come near 
home, upon those who assert cerebral, automatic or 
necessitarian theories of the soul. 

In our returns curly hair is preferred to straight, 
red cheeks are a special point of beauty, as are red 
knees in fewer cases. Boy dolls are only about one- 
twelfth of all, and it is remarkable how few dolls are 
babies, rather than little adults. Children are very 
prone to focus their interest upon peculiar slippers, 
shoes, the upward or downward look of the eyes, some 
peculiar turn and carriage of the head, some cute ex- 
pression, "like a clown,'* "funny as if it were going 
to cry or shout," "stuck up," "smiling," "sweet," 
"tanned," etc. Some particular dress, name, com- 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



plexion, or even defect is often focussed on. Aver- 
sions follow the same rule. 

Of 579 answers to questions 13, 14 and 15 of the 
supplementary paper, 463 reported for the age below 
five as follows : 266 preferred babies, 126 children and 
71 adults. From 5 to 10, 314 reported, of whom 105 
preferred babies, 159 children, and 50 adult dolls. 
From 10 to 15 years of age, 45 reported a preference 
for babies, 64 for children, and 32 for adults. On the 
whole, babies were thus preferred 416 times and chil- 
dren and adults 502 times. Children lead babies after 
the age of five, the ratio of adult dolls increasing with 
age. Boys* dolls are least often infants. Among 45 
feeble-minded girls the ratio of dolls as babies is 
highest. 

Out of 579 answers to the second questionnaire, 88 
mentioned preference for blue, 27 for brown, and 8 
for black eyes. As to hair preferences, 118 mention 
light, 62 curly, 27 dark, 8 real, and 5 red hair ; while 
15 mention love for red cheeks, 7 nice teeth, 8 pretty 
hands or feet, 3 red lips. 

Some children have a strong preference for old 
dolls, however ugly, and are indifferent to new ones, 
however fine ; some love and some hate heirloom 
dolls. Some have sudden changes of affection ; an 
old doll that has been long loved is perhaps suddenly 
repelled, thrown or given away, or even burned, and 
a new favorite chosen. Some never like lady or 
Japanese dolls, but their affection has a very limited 
range. Children with many dolls often have one for 
Sunday, or one is queen, mother, or teacher ; some 
profess to be absolutely impartial, loving all their 
dolls exactly alike. Often a sudden craze for doll 
dressmaking, hair combing, fantastic buttons, very 
small or very large dolls, shoes, hats, movable eyes, are 
reported, suggesting something akin to Kraft-Ebing s 
fetichism on the one hand, and the strange focussing 
on single features of face or dress seen in children's 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



drawings on the other, and indicating how psychic 
igrowth tends to focalize, now in this, now in that 
direction, as is- seen again in Mr. Small's study of 
school fads. This we consider a point of great im- 
portance and suggestiveness for school work when 
fully wrought out. Mind may have its nascent periods, 
like the body. Now interest centers on hair, which 
must be in long braids, or otherwise done up, or be 
^orn short, parted sideways, banged. Now it is a 
fat, round, baby face, plump red cheeks, teeth, pretty 
neck, joints, that are doted on. So it is with articles 
of dress, etc. 



11. Psychic Qualities. 

The following psychic qualities are ascribed to dolls 
in the order of frequency of their recurrence, the 
figures indicating the number of cases : good 97, cold 
54, jealous 46, bad 45, angry 38, naughty 36, loving 35 
(bad and naughty together equalling 81, should thus, 
really, be second in order), tired 33, crying 18, feels 16, 
pain 27, clean 15, feels warm 12, sleepy 12, tidy 12, 
cross 10, hungry 8, quiet 6, proud 6, sorrowing 6, mis- 
chievous 6, feeling hurt 6, stupid 6, modest 4, lone- 
some 4, kind 4, desiring something 4, dirty 4, patrent 
4, taste 4, seeing 3, talkative 3, obedient 3, smell 2, 
truthful 2, thoughtful 2, sly 2, stubborn 2, " sassy" 2. 
The following psychic qualities were fully brought out 
in one case each : comfortable, contented, cleanly, 
blushing, honest, gentle, frightened, ill at ease, lady- 
like, making faces, sings, scolds, sneers, full of life, 
troublesome, too thoughtful, pure, proper, moral, 
lying, well educated, religious, prone to run away, 
democrat, presbyterian, rich, baptist, idiotic. 

Of the 579 answers to the supplementary syllabus, 
question 26 foots up as follows : 230 children thought 
their dolls good ; 202 thgught they felt cold ; 185 that 



i6 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



they could love; 183 that they felt tired; 161 that 
they could be hungry ; 135 that they were sometimes 
bad ; 77 that they were jealous ; 58 that they hated. 
The smallest proportion of girls ascribing these quali- 
ties to dolls were over 13, and the next least come the 
feeble-minded children. 

Although these sixty-five terms can hardly be des- 
ignated as so many qualities, they, too, open a rich 
field for psychology. Interesting essays are waiting 
to be written on such topics as modesty for dolls, what 
constitutes their goodness and badness, its relation to 
good and bad looks, being good and bad all the time 
and alternating, doll penalties, their sense of fatigue, 
their power to sit still, their stupidity and obstinacy, 
their propensity to sleep or be wakeful, their affection, 
etc. Out of 45 children specially cross-questioned, 
aged six to eight, 8 boys and 22 girls thought dolls 
felt cold, I boy and 13 girls thought not. Out of 34 
children of the same age 4 boys and 18 girls thought 
dolls felt tired, 2 boys and 10 girls thought not. Out 
of 48 children of the same age, specially questioned, 
3 boys and 8 girls thought dolls got angry, 6 boys and 
25 girls said no, and 6 were in doubt. Of 45 children 
asked whether their dolls loved them, 10 boys and 29 
girls thought yes, none no, 6 did not know. Of 45 
children questioned i boy and 2 girls said dolls hated 
some one, 8 boys and 24 girls thought not, 2 boys 
and 8 girls were in doubt. Psychic qualities are often 
suggested by looks, dress, or fancied resemblance to 
some one thought to have good or bad qualities, while 
colored dolls, brownies, German, Chinese and other 
dolls are often fancied, especially by boys, because 
they are ''funny" or exceptional. 

Almost all doll play involves the assumption of 
psychic qualities, but a few illustrations are added : 

F., 18 (girl 18) writes : I went to dolls with all my childish 
trials and felt relieved when I had poured out my heart to 
them. F., 16, I supposed they were real children and would 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 17 

talk to them and laugh. F., 15. Her name is a real persom's 
name, and she is just as real to me as a real baby. R, 16. 
I thought my dolls had the same feelings as persons. An- 
other writes: My dolls were my most sympathetic friends 
and had all my confidence as no one else did, nothing would 
keep me still longer than to have a doll to talk to. I had 
a great habit of describing all things to. my dolls.'* " My doll 
and I were great comrades. I talked over everything, and 
it was pleasant to think her a companion like myself, although 
I nevQr lost sight of the fact that it was only china." " I 
was so fond of dolls that I cared little for children's com- 
pany." *'AII stories that I heard were told over to my dolls." 
F., 17. " How would you like to be thrown down like that?" 
(F., 7). ''Dolly was very angry when I wouldn't let her go 
to see the other children;" " I knew that my dolls had vital- 
ity and mind;" " my baby doll gives me no rest day or night, 
she is better if I take her out" F., 11. '* When I found 
dolly lying out on the ground I thought I could see tears in 
her eyes, she was so hungry and cold." F., 14. " Two of 
my dolls had their heads broken off, but this made no dif- 
ference in my treatment, for they seemed endowed with life 
and feeling." " One day we were invited to a party, and I 
would not let Rose (dolly) go, because she) had been naughty, 
but she cried so, and said she would be good, that I let her 
go." F., 12. " Dolly had been naughty, and instead of tak- 
ing her out to ride, I made her sit in a chair all day." F., 11. 
" A fifth grade girl would kiss and ' poor ' her doll after 
spanking her, but once, after a specially severe punishment, 
was filled with remorse for days." I talked to my doll as 
if it could hear, and thought it could." " I thought my dolls 
were real, but they weren't." 

When three, M. was given a doll, which she cherished till 
arms, legs, and hair were gone, and it was a painful sight, 
her mother burned it; tliough she had plenty of others 
far prettier, she cried all night and almost all day. Her in- 
tense grief lasted a week. Three years afterward I asked 
her where Alice was; she began to cry and said: Why did 
you burn it, I loved it so, and she loved me. She is in God's 
house and sometime I will see her." " One Sunday dolly 
soiled her dress, and F., 4, asked if Goddy would care if she 
washed it, so it would be clean Sunday. That night she 
prayed forgiveness, saying to God, that is your own day. 
you know, and she must be clean. Then dolly had to pray for 
forgiveness for spoiling her dress and making Sunday work." 
F., 8. " My dolls can educate their minds in school. They 
are too young to marry. I am afraid they would get tired, 
or sick, or hungry. They like fruit and oat meal for break- 
fast, soup and milk for dinner." " My cousins would get and 
talk to my doll and report her answers. It hurt me that 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 

she should talk to them while she never would to me, and I 
would gaze at her expectantly when I got her back, hoping 
she would some day open that rigid mouth and talk to me." 
"One night my doll was accidently left outdoors; it stormed, 
and I lay awake and cried^ thinking she would be just as 
frightened as I would. For days after it was found I watched 
anxiously, fearing sickness." "I cried when my doll was 
found with cracked cheeks, because I thought it hurt her." 

F., II, brought home from Europe a German doll, With 
whom she would speak only German, because, as she said 
with all seriousness, dolly could not understand English. 
German was hard for the girl to speak." " I thought my doll 
had only the sense of sight, and when I doubted that, asked 
my mother, who said she could see a% well as other dollies. 
Then I knew she saw, though I thought not so wdl as I." 
** Once t!he mice gnawed dolly and let bran out. She then 
became an invalid, confined to her bed, and I loved her most 
of all." " F., 4, was very fond of pretty things and hated 
what was ugly, yet, with many pretty dolls, her heart was 
wholly given to a clumsy old green cricket. This she called 
dear dolly, would carry it tenderly in her arms, pat, kiss, and 
rock it. When her father once put his feet on it, she caught 
it up saying : Oh, don't ! you didn't know it was my dolly. 
She could not sleep without it in her arms." '* Rose, a rag 
doU. had been stolen, returned aad hid in the attic by the 
mother, fearing disease, F., 4, wondered, and soon made 
a new use of the doll's personality. If reproved, would say, 
Rosa told me I might, or Rosa broke it." " F., 5, woke 
in the middle of the night crying because she missed her 
dolly, fearing some big ki-i had got her." " When brother 
set the dog on my doll, it was so badly torn that I put it 
in a box and had a funeral. We cried real tears, but at 
night it pained me so that I went alone and dug her up, 
kissed, hugged her and told her I was sorry." 

" My bisque doll cracked one eye. I pitied it, especially 
as my eyes were sore, but resisted having a new eye, because 
it would not be the same doll. 1 never could think my dolls 
could be annihilated." I hope my dolls don't see their 
Christmas presents beforehand." F., 12, cut ofif her Jap- 
anese doll's hair, so she could never go back to Japan. F. 6., 
cut her doirs hair, thinking it would grow again." " F., 12, 
said to her dolly: "There, I have fixed my baby's hair and she 
didn't cry, can't you be as good ? " " One of my dolls, Belle, 
had a splendid wardrobe. I thought all my other dolls jeal- 
ous, so I was especially kind to them in her presence, so 
she should know, despite her fine clothes, I loved them all 
alike. I sometimes saw her sneer." " A boy, 7, screamed, 
saying: 'Mother, mend the dolFs leg,' thinking such sur- 
gery painful" F., 13, * would put mplasses on doll's mouth an4 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



19 



then punish her for stealing it. " F., 13, knocked Chinese doll 
against a window for crying and brokeit. '*F., 9, sings dolly to 
sleep with her favorite songs." "F.,4's,dolls are good or bad as 
she is. If corrected for bad language, her dolls use it." " F., 
II, said : dolly was never on the cars to enjoy it before, but 
always went in the trunk." " F., 3's dolly often wants to go 
to the vyrater closet, and is tenderly put on the stool by her 
little mother." " When my doll's foot was broken off, I 
thought it hurt, but would grow." " F., 6, has great fears 
her dolls will feel lonesome." "F., 4, said: Now dolly, I 
would like to give you a bath, but I must go up and see that 
other baby bathed, the real one, you know." " F., 4, Will 
my dolly ever grow up to be a lady doll ? " 



III. Doll's Food and Feeding. 

In our returns 90 children fed their dolls with both 
liquid and solid food, 75 sat at the doll's table, 68 
touched food to the doll's lips and then ate it them- 
selves (some speak of chewing it for the doll or put in 
doll's hand to make believe she eats it), 45 gave it 
milk (16 oif whom imagined water to be milk, and then 
played nurse the doll in natural way), 36 distinctly 
imagined the food, 33 set the dolls at table with 
themselves, 31 imagined or pretended growth, 8 of 
whom were positive the doll grew, thinking dresses 
grew short, or pulled doll's legs and found her to 
measure more, 29 say they never fed dolls or that they 
can't eat, 23 touched food to doll's lips, then threw 
it away or put it in doll's mouth and took it out 
again, 19 distinctly imagined hunger, 19 declared 
that dolls preferred certain kinds of food to others, 1 5 
were strenuous in urging real hunger, 2 said the dolls 
looked hungry, 9 thought them hungry when they 
were so themselves, 13 poked food inside the dolls* 
heads, where sometimes it accumulated and spoiled, i 
broke doll's tooth trying to get it in, I broke a hole to 
do so, 12 really put liquid into the doll, I had a/ubber 
ball in the back of the doll's head to squirt it out, 
13 reported spells of great regularity in feeding, 11 



20 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



constant regularity, 9 used only liquid food, 7 only 
solid, 6 imagined they ate without any agency of the 
child, 7 used empty plates and imagined the food, 6 
thought some foods especially disagreed with dolls, 1 1 
seemed to think dolls really starved if not fed, 6 gave 
foods according to the age, 3 put the food down the 
neck of the doll's dress, 4 poured liquid food on the 
front of the dress, 8 always gave the dolls the same 
food as they had, i saw a healthy look in her doll 
from having slept and eaten well 

The following foods are mentioned also mostly by 
children between the ages of 5 and 1 1 : milk 88 
times, bread 75 times, cake 62 times, water 45, candy 
33, crackers 27, potatoes 19, tea 18, meat 15, sugar 13, 
pie 13, fruit 13, apples 12, butter 9, ice cream 8, 
cookies 7, all kinds of food 7, mud pies 6, coffee 5, 
sweetened water 5, dirt 3, ginger bread 3, grapes 3, 
nuts 3, strawberries 3, biscuit 3, apple juice 2, puddings 
4, oranges 4, salt 4. The following were mentioned 
by 2 children : apple sauce, chicken, chalk and water, 
flour and water, gravy, cheese, chocolate, eggs, 
flowers, fish, mustard, lemonade, leaves, jelly, sand 
(for food, for flour, for sugar), soup, sweets. The 
following were mentioned once each : canned corn, 
blacking, beefsteak, buttons, brown paper, brick dust 
and water, boards in thin sHces, beans, acorns, cocoa- 
nut, custard, cocoa, cinnamon water, crumbs, cream, 
flour, grass, green fruit, grasshopper (used as roast 
turkey), jumbles, lime, mush, mucilage and water, 
orange juice for soup, pears, pickles, pancakes, peaches, 
pictures of food (for paper dolls), rice, roast beef, 
starch and water for milk, also sticks, stones, sawdust, 
seed (in bottles for canned corn), soft food, soap suds, 
vegetables. 

Some children put food on the floor near the doll, 
others think it tries to eat or move the hand toward 
the food, forgets to eat, prefers cup, bottle, spoon, 
plate, glass, or to eat with fingers. Some are fed only 



A STUDY OP DOLLS. 



21 



when children play house, or Sunday mornings, or on 
coming home from school, or Saturdays, or going to 
bed, or between meals, or once a day. Out of 49, 19 
say positively that dolls are never hungry, 14 are posi- 
tive they are, 16 are in doubt, some think they are 
hungry all the time, others not often, or sometimes, 
or may be, or guess so. Out of the other 49, 18 think 
dolls will not starve if not fed, 1 7 think they will starve 
if not fed, and others are divided. 

F., 30, never 'allowed dolls to drink coffee, for it made 
their skin dark, she fed imaginary milk (water) in a real 
bottle. F., 20. My paper dolls were always fed by picture 
food. F., 17. I have spent hours trying to feed my dolls, 
F., 50. My dolls always went with me to* the country, be- 
cause they could not get out of the doll house to buy food. 
F., 26. I fed one doll rrgularly until I found she would not 
gro'w, after that only when I happened to think. Another 
preferred to feed liquid food because she liked to use a 
spoon. F., 6, gives dolls flowers to smell for dessert. F., 
10, says, once dolly got hungry and asked me for food. I 
fed liquids on a bib, thinking babies soaked it up that way. 
F., 10. I feed dolly at table when nO' one is looking. F., 
49. I put food on doll's mouth till it was dry, and thought the 
doll sucked out the juice. F., 6, uses doll biscuits, offering 
them first to the doll, then eating them herself. F., 4. When 
her doll's head was knocked off, cried till uncle said he 
would fill it with meal before fastening it on, then thought 
she would get enough t to eat and be well. R, 14, squeezed 
everything she could into a small mouth opening, fixed so 
it came out at the back. F., 21. I used to worry lest I 
should n&t feed my doll and it would starve. F., 4, punished 
her doll by making it eat dirt, stones, coal, etc. F., 14. I 
used to beg candy for my doll, hold it to her mofuth, and 
when no one was looking, slip it in my own, F., 15. I fed 
dolly a great deal, because it was fun to wash her bib. F., 10. 
If I forgot, I fed them double quantity next day. F., 4, 
wants to feed/ everything that tastes good to her black rag dolL 
F., ID, used to imagine both dishes and food; but later thought 
dolls took care of -themselves. Another writes : " I held 
food long to doll's mouth so she would have time to 
chew it fine, then put it on another plate and repeated this 
with piece after piece. F., 10. I broke out some of doll's 
teeth, pushing in food with pin, and she was very sick. F., 
6, does not like dolls that talk, because the fixings in the 
stomach are not good for digestion. F., 12. When quite 
young I knew doll could not open its mouth, so I would hold 



22 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



it there awhile and then gradually slip it down the neck. F., 
15, imagined her doll to cry with pain when the tea was too 
hot. An English principal writes: I know a boy of 5 who half 
starved himself to feed an old nut cracker in the usual form 
of Punch, with a big nose, and a mouth worked by a handle 
in the back; this lasted weeks, but was concealed. He since 
said he felt this figure a member of the family, and vaguely 
thought his life was sustained by feeding Punch. R, 38. 
I always thought each doll did not grow ,but expected the 
next to be bigger because older. My doll grew to 
inches, then stopped; this worried me, so I sent her up 
garret to stay till taller. R, 38. I was so sure my doll grew 
that I had large hems put in her dresses. R, 4, thinks doll's 
dress tight after feeding. 

Dolls are weighed, and a few days later shot and 
stones sewed in their clothes so they will weigh more. 
Children say of foods they especially like or dislike, 
that it is good or bad for their dolls. They often 
have recipes, as : " flower, salt, sugar, milk, baked till 
brown.'* Sometimes the table ceremonies are elabo- 
rate, including grace, comments on food, courses, etc. 
At Thanksgiving dinners blocks are (play) boiled for 
turkey, round things for pies and cakes, and the rest 
pictures. When the food is not wholly imaginary, 
crackers may serve for every solid, and water for all 
drinks. Toy cook stoves are a great boon to children 
during the brewing and cooking age. If children eat 
too much or prefer the wrong kinds of food, dolls are 
accused of doing the same thing. They are counselled 
not to eat too fast, nor to be greedy nor slobber. If 
dolls are sick they must be fed accordingly. With 
some children the fire, stove, wood, dishes, and food, are 
entirely imaginary; but more commonly something 
is imagined to be something else which it more or less 
resembles. Leaves and chips are plates, sticks are 
for spoons, bits of broken crockery are whole dishes, 
pieces of paper, petals of flowers, even figures on the 
carpet are dishes, so are shells, flat stones, acorns are 
cups and saucers, clothes pins are sugar tongs, and 
napkins and every kind of table furniture is parodied. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



23 



Soap suds is ice-cream, mud is chocolate cake, brick 
dust and water is tea, salt is imagined to be sugar, and 
sugar salt. Many kinds of seeds, buds, etc., are used, 
A barn-yard weed has a tiny pod called cheese. Flag- 
root and pods, birch-bark, nuts, the honeyed ends of 
clover, honeysuckle, and other blossoms, green fruit, 
pepper-grass, and many other things, are used as 
dolls* food, and sometimes children are injured by 
eating what only their imagination makes wholesome. 



IV. Sleep. 

329 papers speak of dolls' sleep. Most of these 
children are between 6 and 11; 90 mentioned keeping 
others quiet while the dolls slept. 76 rocked it in arms 
and sang to put it to sleep, and 76 put it in bed and 
did so, 55 rocked it to sleep without song, 37 used 
cradle and song, 33 took doll to bed with them, 12 
expressly insist that the doll really slept, 7 never put 
dolls to sleep, 3 shut the eyes of mechanical dolls 
only and called that sleep, 5 said made no difference 
to dolls whether there was quiet or not, 10 had dolls 
say prayers, 2 said only dolls which closed eyes could 
go to sleep, I covered the eyes with paper, 4 rolled it 
in baby wagon, 7 jumped or trotted it, several told a 
story, others rock it in a hammock, have it in the 
dark, shut it in a trunk, or think it sleeps mostly when 
they are not present ; 52 luUabys are named, Rock-a-by 
baby leading all the rest, being mentioned 29 times. 
Others more often mentioned are the following: 
Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber ; Bye baby Bunt- 
ing ; quite original luUabys ; La, la, la ; By-lo ; Mother 
Goose rhymes ; Sweet and low ; while others mention 
The Bowery ; sacred songs ; kindergarten songs ; 
Hush-a-by Baby : Wee Willie Winkle ; Shut your 
eye, do not cry ; Moody and Sankey songs, with ex- 
ceptional things, like Rocked in the cradle of the 



24 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



deep ; German songs ; Slumber song ; selections from 
Pinafore and other popular operas ; Comrades, and 
many others. 

F., 10. I rock dolly and sing, and if this does not succeed, 
I walk the floor with her. F., lo. Undressing and putting 
dolly to bed v/as the best play of all. Another says : I took 
my doll to bed with me nights, and put myself to sleep, try- 
ing to keep quiet, so as not to disturb her. Another says: I 
was always quiet, walketi on tiptoe, and talked in a whisper 
when dolly slept. F., 15. Nights I undressed my dolls, 
put on their night clothes, had them say their p-ayers, and 
when all were in bed, would sing to them. M., 8, hangs his 
doll on a chair pappoose-wise to sleep nights. One folds 
a shawl, places a pillow on the fltfor or puts two chairs to- 
gether for a bed. One writes : Only my large doll Mar- 
guerite would go to sleep. I would sing and rock her till 
my arms* ached; one was greatly afraid dolls would get their 
heads covered in bed and smother; one puts little doll in big 
doll's arms, and pretends the mother doll sings it to sleep, 
when it is put in a cradle. F., 7. My dolls sometimes kick 
the cover off. I spank them and they keep it on. One says : 
Some dolls go- to sleep as soon as their head touches tiie 
pillow, and others are the worst kind of sleepers. F., 12. 
My doll often wakes in the middle of the night and cries for 
water, when the girl's father must get up and go to the 
kitchen for it. F., 14, puts candy to doll's mouth, so it will 
sleep quicker. F., 7, says : When dolly is just awake, .she is 
often in a very bad humor. F., 14. I sang my doll to sleep 
with every song I knew. F., 12. When dolls get older, you 
can put them to bed awake; if I woke up and could not 
find my doll, would cry as if my heart would break. One 
writes: I could never keep as quiet for a baby sleeping as 
I could for my doll; one considered dolls young ladies and 
never sang to them; one used to go to sleep herself, putting 
dolls to sleep ; when I sang the line — '*down comes baby, 
cradle and all," I let my doll drop, so as to soothe her im- 
aginary cries; one was vexed if anyone came into the room; 
if doll was good I put her to bed, if not, the nurse; when 
mamma was busy, or I .was noisy, I was always ready to 
be quiet getting dolly to sleep. 

V. Sickness. 

Dolls have many diseases. In our returns there 
were 63 cases of measles, 47 of scarlet fever, 34 colds, 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



25 



33 of whopping cough, 31 diphtheria, 27 of members 
injured, 26 headache, 23 mumps, 22 fever, 18 chicken 
pox, 17 small pox, 16 sore throat, 15 colic, 11 croup, 
1 1 surgical operations, 9 stomach ache, 9 toothache, 
9 leg broken, 8 grip, 7 consumption, 5 beheaded, 4 
typhoid fever, 4 leprosy. The following occurred 
from one to three times : bronchitis, biliousness, 
cramp, catarrh, chills, teething, sore eyes, earache, 
dysentery, jaundice, heart-trouble, chafed limbs, pneu- 
monia, rheumatism, dyspepsia, brain fever, spells of 
vomiting. 

The most common remedies are tapioca pills, water, 
sugar, pills, poultices, plasters, quinine, paper pills, 
colored water, vinegar, menthol pencils, water and 
dirt, tea syrup, seltzer aperient, sweet oil, salt and 
water, sugar for powders, soap, peppermint, paregoric, 
potato and salt, castor oil, vaseline, cement, currant 
juice and water, camphor, candy, ice cream, bread pills, 
dirt powders, chalk and water, dissolved candy, hot 
bottles, mustard plaster, squills, laudanum, Hive syrup, 
castoria, drops, etc. 

To treat these diseases the doctor in 48 cases is a 
boy, in 30 a playmate, sex not mentioned. In 25 
cases the owner of the doll is the doctor ; in 24 cases 
the doctor is imaginary, in 20 cases he is another doll. 
Sometimes father, mother, or even the real doctor, if 
he happens to be present, is consulted. 

The remedy often aims to fit the disease. Fever 
may be put on with red paint, treated with Seidlitz 
powder or a drop of bismuth every half hour, A doll 
who lost her wig and had brain fever was bandaged 
and put to bed. Repairs are surgical operations and 
the repair shop is a hospital. In one case of tooth- 
ache the face was broken in trying to pull it. For 
dyspepsia burned rice was ground in a mortar. For 
sore eyes a veil was used, for sore throat flannel 
and salt gargle, pork rinds, red pepper and ten 
minutes in bed. For stomach ache, after careful 



A STUDY OF DOLU. 



examination of the pulse, — flannel, salt and water, 
tapioca pills and darkness was the treatment. In 
small pox, caused by spotting the waxed face of a 
doll, sugar and water cured. For measles, the head 
was bathed and tied up with imaginary brandy, 
bread pills, a sweat and hot water, which latter 
brought out the eruptions until the wax face was 
disfigured. For mumps, the face is grotesquely 
muffled and tied up. Leproay was suggested in the 
Sunday School and by the paint flecking off. In the 
case of a broken leg an ambulance, ether, etc., were 
extemporized. Eye water is squeezed into the socket 
of a knocked-out eye. Ink and catnip tea are good 
for sleeplessness. Orange marmalade, licorice, etc., 
are for teething. For cohc, dolls must be laid on their 
stomachs and given warm drinks and tucked up with 
extra wraps. The best thing, says a boy of 13, is a 
good dose of bad medicine. 

" My doll Liz," says F„ 10, " had a headache, so I put on 
her micado and read her some of Longfellow's Hiawatha, 
as she wanted me to." R, 10. " My baby doll is always 
sick, and I have Dr. Sam, a very old doll, come and treat 
her." R, 8, vaccinated all her dolls, putting in soap. F., 12. 
" My baby doll has colic every night, croup, pain, and all 
sorts of diseases, hvil the large dolls are very healthy." F., 
12. "The paint came oi¥ my doll's face and she grew pale and 
sick." Two boys had dolls wounded in the army; 17, doctors 
were purely imaginary personages. Some girls about 12 
had a hospital house, in which at one time there were forty- 
two patients. M., 7, takes his doll to the seaside for her 
health. F., 12, had 92 dolls, many were often sick; disease 
not always designated. R, 10, Puts her collicky dolls 
across her knee and they soon recover. F., 13, rubbed red 
chalk on her doll's face to make a high fever seem more 
real. M., 6, has dolls that sometimes have three or four 
diseases at once; they must be rubbed, dosed, the room 
kept dark and quiet. "When I was sick, my doll was sick, 
too; she went through whooping cough, measles, and scar- 
let fever with me. If either of us got sick the other did. 
'* Mamma was always the surgeon, mei^.ding broken linibsj 
we always pitied dolls and thought they suffered greatly. 
F 12 used to give tooth powder for medicine, but stopped 
when 'told it would not digest. R, 13. " I was once ex- 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



27 



tremely a<nxious lest my doll baby should die, it wa^s so sick,*^ 
** My doll followed every stage of the disease of a neighbor, 
had the same treatment and got well when she did. I made 
an artificial scab on her face.'* F., 3, if she bumps her doll, 
always runs for mamma to put vaseline on it. F., 8, had as 
her chief wish .for a long time a bed, so her dolly could be 
sick. F., II, "feeding dolls and imagining them sick, always 
seemed foolish to me." M., 8, was a doll dentist, with tooth- 
picks for instruments. A doll, shaky about back and legs, 
six weeks, which was literally followed. Another doll be- 
came permanently bHnd after scarlet fever. For another a 
red lead pencil was desired to make blotches, so the doll 
could have the measles. F., 9, fell from window, and broke 
her arm; when well, she threw her doll out of the window, but 
as its arm was not broken, did it purposely and had it splintered. 
F., 8, telephoned through the door knob for the Dr., as baby 
was awful sick. One doll was dressed and trained as a nurse. 
Paper dolls were sick when torn. The doll doctors visited 
and looked at them earnestly but did not say much. All the 
dolls of an invalid child were invalids. Laura Bridgeman 
bound her doll's eyes as were her own. If bran comes out 
the doll is feeble. " Reading of Indians, my brother and I 
scalped my doll's head and it was beyond remedy." " After 
fever my doll's hair came out; I pulled out a few every day." 
M., 9, shot holes in dolls with bow and arro>w to dress the 
wounds. "When my dolls got well they would first sit up for 
a few minutes, then all day, then play." " Put paper dolls 
torn, sick, in a book or bed." One could never give medi- 
cine to dolls she hated it so herself. F., 8, was most affectionate 
with sick dolls. " My dolls sometimes got sick as a punish- 
ment for being bad." M., 6, with friends, treated doll for 
drowning. For many children dolls have no diseases, for 
others they are simply sick, with no disease specified and get 
well with no drugs or doctor. For others medicine is given, 
no kind prescribed; they are simply put to bed or laid down. 
It must be children of a very different type of mind, as well 
as better acquainted with sickness, whose dolls have every 
symptom of specific diseases with doctors called, particular 
medicines prepared and given with glass cup, spoon or fin- 
gers, and with localized paiirs and aches. 



VI. Death, Funeral and Burial of Dolls. 

Sometimes these are quite isolated from each other 
and from sickness, and sometimes all follow in due 
course. Of all the returns available under this rubric 



28 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



90 children mentioned burial, their average age being 
nine ; 80 mentioned funerals, 73 imagined their dolls 
dead, 30 dug up dolls after burial to see if they had 
gone to Heaven, or simply to get them back. Of 
these 1 1 dug them up the same day. Only 9 speak of 
them as dying naturally of definite diseases. 15 put 
them under sofa, in drawers, attics or gave them 
away, calling this death ; 30 express positive belief in 
future life of dolls, 8 mentioned future life for them 
without revealing their own convictions, 3 buried dolls 
with pets and left them, 3 bad or dirty dolls went to 
the bad place, 14 to Heaven ; 17 children were espec- 
ially fond of funerals. 12 dolls came to accidental 
death by bumps or fractures, i burst, i died of 
melted face, 2 were drowned (i a paper doll), i died 
because her crying apparatus was broken, i doll 
murdered another, was tried and hung. Dolls of 
which children tire often die. 30 children never 
imagined dolls dead. Parents often forbid this, i 
boy killed his sister's doll with a toy cannon, 3 resur- 
rected dolls got new names, 5 out of 7 preachers at 
dolls' funerals were boys, i was the doctor ; 3 doll 
undertakers are described. 22 cases report grief that 
seems to be very real and deep ; in 23 cases this 
seemed feigned. The mourning is sometimes real 
black and sometimes pretended, 19 put flowers on 
dolls* graves, one " all that week 28 expressly say 
that dolls have no souls, are not alive, and have no 
future life. In 21 cases there was death but no 
burial ; in 10, funerals but no burials ; in 8, funerals 
but no deaths, 

F., 14. " My dolls never die nor marry, they are babies." 
F., 14. "My dolls never die unless they get broken. I never 
allow them to, it is too painful." R, 23. "I never^ thought 
dolls dead till arms, legs, head were gone, and often not 
then." F., 13. " Doll smashed, not dead, just thrown away." 
F., 9, " Doll broken, funeral just for fun." F., 8. " One par- 
ticular doll for funeral purposes." One remembers doll's 
head crushed, kissing fragments and crying, " O ! dear Fred- 



A STUDY. OF DOLLS. 



die s gone to Heaven." One g^ot doll too warm and when 
wax ran down its face cried, " O, mamma! dolly is bleeding 
to death." "My dolls nev^r die, but I do so hate to have 
them sick." M., lo, buries dolls' limbs, heads, etc., apart ii 
they come loose, R, 9. " Very rarely had my children die, 
but had them come to life right away as a different person." 
F., 6, was given a doll so lifelike that she feared it, believing 
it a dead -baby. A teacher writes : " That true value of a 
good do'Il in moulding a girl's character has not begun to be 
appreciated. I disapprove doll balls, theaters, marriages, and 
especially deaths and funerals." F., 9, whittled dolls rudely 
from sticks, buried them, covered the grave with flowers, 
and in a few days dug them up as mummies. One thinks an 
imperfect doll better off dead; one never buries but simply 
loses interest in it or throws it in a corner. For one the 
thought of death ^ was too terrible to play with. When a 
dog tore a beautiful doll to shreds its owner was simply 
heart broken. For one, burying was throwing away, hiding, 
or otherwise getting rid of the doll least cared for. F., 16. "It 
broke my heart when my doll broke her head, but I never 
thought of a funeral or future Hfe." M., 6, hates dolls, " for 
they are all girls, they just keep their mouth shut and make 
bel'eve children, they never die because they don't keep their 
eyes always closed forever." F., 11, never played dolls died 
lest she should die herself. F., 10. ** We draped ourselves 
and the doll's coffin with crape, it was a melancholy proces- 
sion, and after a touching eulogy by my cousin, she was laid 
to rest beside the late rooster." Two girls of 4 played all 
their dollies were dead; one was dressed as a "God doll" 
and hung up high; as the others died they were each tossed 
up to the God doll and if it touched him or he swung a little, 
they said the angels would come for the dead doll. " We 
read a chapter in the Bible, said a prayer and buried the doll 
in a box. I went into the house crying, and could not be 
comforted, but dug her up in an hour or two."/F., 10, dreamed 
she saw her broken doll in heaven. Anotlier is comforted 
because she can take the dead doll to the table with her in 
heaven. Two girls of three broke off their doll's heads, but 
they were " just as alive" and treated the same. " I used to 
come and sit by her grave and pity her, and think what it 
must seem to be down there in the grave." Colored F., 12, 
said dolls did not go to heaven, for it was bright; they were 
put in the dark earth, hence went to hell. " Soon after my 
doll died 1 went to a funeral and was consoled to know I 
should meet her again." F., 7. We had a regular grave 
yard at the end of the garden where we buried pets and dolls. 
When dolly had lain there a few days, we dug her up and 
played she was a new baby and dressed her in long clothes." 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



F., 10, thought doll could not go to heaven unless buried in a 
regular cemetery. F,, 6, lost her doll, and pictured it as a 
doll angel so vividly that when it was found she was dis- 
gusted to find that it was still on earth. F., 13, when she 
found her doirs head hollow thought it had always been 
dead. A girl feared a black doll and burnt it in the fire, 
and for a long time could not look at the fireplace without 
fearing its ghost would appear in the smoke. F., 7, found 
a rag doll had no heart and so put in a small ball so it 
could live and love us. At one doll's funeral after chanting 
the Lord's Prayer they recited " earth to earth, dust to dust, 
if the Lord don't take you the devil must." "When dolly 
died from eating too much of a pudding I was forbidden, I 
watched her grave for fear angels would take her." " When 
my brother proved my doll had no brains by slicing off her 
head, I felt I had been deluded; I watched him with stoicism 
and took no more interest in dolls." F., 11, cremates d«ad 
paper dolls. 

VIL Dolls* Names. 

Of dolls* names, 199 were given for a friend; 87 
because they were pretty, favorite or fancy names ; 54 
because of real or fancied likenesses ; 35 for a name 
in a story or some one heard of ; 33 were named from 
the giver ; 34 had no name save Dolly ; 21 gave new 
names often ; 20 were named from some peculiar 
look in quality or person ; 9 took the owner's name ; 
6 were named from the time or place of receiving the 
doll ; 5 from a feigned likeness ; 4 had purely imag- 
inary names ; 2 had very unusual names ; in some 
cases ugly names are given to dolls disliked. In two 
cases the material of which the doll is made is the 
name. 10 very formal christenings are spoken of. 
Sometimes every doll in a family receives the same 
name. Dolls with names frequently changed rarely 
develop distinct personalities. 

Some cases are the following : named Rose because of rosy 
cheeks. Some children cannot remember the names of their 
dolls, they have so man}^ A very short name sometimes goes 
with a very small doll. M., 3, named his doll *' Fa ily." The 
earliest dolls are rarely named. Sometimes qualifying terms 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



31 



are used, like " birthday Mary," ** Chicago Jane." A dent on 
the cheek suggested Dotty Dimple. A Christmas doll was 
named Merry Christmas. For F., 6, all dolls' names must end 
in ie. *' Whenever I heard a new, pretty name I gave it to my 
best doll." M., 11 (Bohemian), named his doll My Friend. 
** Named Lucille because French." "Named Carol because 
given on Christmas." F., 12, now thinks it silly to name dolls, 
although she still plays with them. *'Most children over six 
give dolls their own surname." **My doll is named from a 
ship," With F., 4, a new name goes with every new dress. 
One doll named Gingerbread, from color of its stuffed-out head. 
** Named * Silkie ' because always dressed in silk." "Named 
Jap because dressed like a Mikado." " An invented name is 
Skidel, another Calambo." Some children hunt catalogues for 
new names. Some are named Lord, Lady, from vocations ; 
some from pet animals. One girl studied the meaning of names 
to make them lit ; one was called Prince Albert, although a girl, 
because he was a good man. " If angry with friends for whom 
my dolls are named I change the name." ** A doll I hated was 
named for a defeated candidate." Some names chosen for 
prettiness are Hazel, Daisy, Blanche, Maud, Dorothy, Pearl, 
Gladys, Flossy, Violet, Rosalie, Elsa. F. called first doll 
** Daisy," the second "more daisy," and so on. 



VIIL Discipline. 

In our returns are 41 distinct cases of punishment 
by being sent to bed, 34 spanked, 32 whippings, 25 
scoldings, 20 put in closet, 13 kept in, 12 shut up, 17 
made to sit down, 11 shaken, 7 slapped, 7 severely 
talked to, 5 deprived of food, 2 tied to aj)ost, i made 
to stand up and sing, i sent home from school, i had 
cayenne pepper put on its tongue, i was punched, i 
had its legs pulled, i had its face covered, i was fed 
on bread and water, i was thrown down stairs, i made 
to sit on the door knob, I had to go to bed in the 
dark, i was hung, with due ceremony. Rewards are 
in the following order of frequency : take out walking, 
visiting, sit up late, go riding, be kissed, go without 
nap, go shopping, told a story, taken to party, given 
candy, cake, clothes, ribbons. Rewards are often 
promised or punishments are often threatened, but 



32 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



not given. There seems little disposition to make 
the punishment fit the crime. The quahties rewarded 
are the following in order of frequency : goodness, 
truthfulness, obedience, neatness, kindness, good 
nature, quiet, sweet temper, patience. Traits or acts 
punished are : being naughty, not sitting still, quarrel- 
ing, talking, answering back, not learning lessons,falling 
from chair, being " sassy,'' running away from baby 
doll, slapping baby doll, crying, being jealous, won't 
stand/' ''won't sit proper," lying, being vain, angry, 
for hitting or falling on small doll, being cross, up- 
setting things, stealing, flirting, ** saying I won't," 
etc. 15 say that they never discipline dolls, either 
because they are good, or too little, or never thought 
of it. 

In the supplementary answers 108 children whip, 
108 never punish, 80 put to bed, 75 spank, 39 slap, 35 
stand in the corner, 34 scold, 21 shake, 20 put in dark 
closet, 5 throw on floor. 4 broke them, and from 3 to 
I each hung them, pulled their ears and hair, stood 
them on their heads, shut them in a box, threw them 
up, and let them drop, left them out in the cold. 
The age when punishments are most frequent and 
severest is below 8, thence onward it gradually declines. 

F., 10, punishes paper dolls by tearing their legs off. R, 
14., by keeping from theater and rewarded by letting dolls 
buy what they would. F., 6, Beats and almos-t breaks her 
doll because she "wets herself most every day." F., ii, 
thought vanity and anger the worst faults. F., 7, whipped 
dolls for no reasan but the pleasure of it. F., 8, flogs severely 
for the slightest error. " When she sasses me and tells me to 
shut up I spank her and she goes to sleep." F., 5. " When 
four she whipped dolls but at eight loved them too much and 
reasoned with them when they were bad.'* F., 8, always 
scolds before whipping. F., 6, whips doll if not found where 
she thinks it was left. F., 8, gave prizes for neatniess, her 
favorite doll getting all. She adds : I did not realize that 
it was my fault if they were untidy." F., 12. I told dolly 
never to get on the floor and whipped her for it, but made 
her no better." M., 10. " My doll used to get angry aind 
I would grab her by the hair and throw her down stairs 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



33 



but afterward give her a nice piece of mud cake with rasp- 
berries on it." "When dolly is bad I leave her alone to 
repent her folly." " I think dollies too little to hardly know 
what is right." "Punishment doesn't seem to make dolls 
any better." " Sometimes I spank dolls for things they didn't 
do, it is such fun," F., ID. " When my dolls are real good 
all day, I let them wear a string of beads or go to ride." F., 
J I, never thought of dolls as good or bad. "They must 
grow up truthful men and women." "I corrected dolls 
for the same faults as my own." " It is better to rule by 
love." My dolls fight far less than they used to." "I ofcten 
give my dolls a good moral talk which helps them." 

IX. Hygiene and Toilet, 

Hygiene and toilet treatment is mentioned as 
follows : dressing, i8 times ; washing face, 12 ; taking 
out doors to get the air, 11 ; general bath, 10 ; dressed 
regularly, 7 times ; hands washed, 7 times ; bathed 
every morning, 5 times ; hair combed, 6 times ; 
braided twice, brushed twice, went in bathing twice, 
teeth brushed twice, nails manicured twice. Occa- 
sional mention is made of gargling throat, cutting 
hair, pure air in sleeping, water closet, massage, 
keeping home from parties to avoid late hours, not 
letting them go with boys, heavy clothing in cold, 
and light in warm weather, putting salve in dolls* ears 
as wax to be cleaned out, and dirty nails to clean out, 
wearing wrappers in the morning, plain dressss in the 
afternoon and silk in the evening. M., 1 1, I could not 
get my doll clean because he was black. 



X. Dolls' Families, Schools, Parties, 
Weddings, Etc. 

153 returns mention families, 44 describe parties, 
teas, receptions, etc, ; 33 schools of various kinds, 26 
weddings are described, 25 excursions or rides, in 21 
cases the child is the mother of her dolls, 18 theatres, 



34 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



concerts, tableaux, in 14 cases other dolls are the 
mothers, 14 played shopping, 14 visits, 12 war, 10 
balls or dances are described, 10 played families only 
with paper dolls, 10 hanging or execution, 7 times 
churches are described, 6 times Sunday Schools, 5 
ceremonial baptisms. There were 4 dolls* swimming 
parties, in 4 cases all the dolls were cousins, in 2 cases 
the child was the grandmother and in 2 aunt of the 
dolls, 2 clubs, 2 plays of park with grand stand, other 
social plays described fully once and often hinted at 
more times are fire company, slave-selling, post-office, 
country fair, sailing, prayer meeting, stepmother, 
imaginary mother. Till 4 one boy was mother of his 
dolls and then father, 

F., 10, called a big doll her child, a small doll her grand- 
child. One boy was mother and the father was at sea. M., 
7. " I am the papa and the stuffed cat the mamma." F., 5, 
crucified boy doll with tacks on a cigar box. One child 

made dolls act Queen Bess, Scott's novels, etc. F., 8, kept 
dodl boarding school. M,, 7, executed criminal doll with 
pop-gun. " At schook dolls must raise their hands. " F., 
II, has wedding with doll bridesmaids, ushers, father, mother, 
invitations, and many dolls to' look on, and rice. Boys per- 
formed allegory of the Rebellion with dolls. Dolls of two 
girls are cousins and many are friends of the girls. One had 
a large family with three generations, all relations of their 
owner. In one place, divorce is a favorite doll play. "The 
dolls I cared least for were often called my nieces." ** I 
loved to have one doll family in the depths of poverty and an- 
other richer to help them." '* For F., 14, giving presents 
between dolls was a great game." "We played Humpty- 
dumpty, Fantasma and Cinderella with dolls." "All my 
dolls were sisters except one I didn't like, which was a ser- 
vant." " Paper dolls were a complete family, but no relation 
to others." "In my doll weddings, something nice to eat 
was the chief thing." " For F., 12, married dolls had child- 
ren, she tucked them up under the clothes and pretended they 
were born the regular way, when they grew up one was Long- 
fellow and the other Louise Alcott." " At doll parties I play 
the piano and dolls dance." " At doll weddings the last was 
singing : ' Now you are married you must obey, you must be 
true to all you say, etc.*" M., 2, heard of crucifixion and 
tried to nail dolly to a board.*' "F., 8,used to sit her dolls in the 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



35 



parlor and play exquisite music ; they applauded loudly and 
she bowed, although she did not know one note from another. 
F., 4, plays school, with dolls in a row and standing over 
them with stick saying 'be good/ " F. 9, got up an elaborate 
baptismal ceremoniaL F., 4, made believe the room was a 
church, put a little string^for a ring on dolly's finger, thisi 
brother as priest asked what name she would have the 
child, said Ruthie, he then threw water in her face, repeated 
the name and went home. We played swimming, throwing 
dolls in the water and dragging them by a string. F., 7, 
dresses up and plays travel, with dress, bag, and buttons for 
money. She gets ticket, has the lounge for cars, and gives 
ticket to chair, which is the conductor. One girl writes 
poetry to her doll : " Well my dollie and where have you 
been, comb your hair and wash your skin." F., 8, ties dolls 
to kite en route for Heaven; " We play doll bath, the ocean 
being a rug; in winter we play school of all nations, when 
we go out they run away and we have great times finding 
them." " I arranged all my dolls on the stairs, sitting quietly 
with them listening to an imagined sermon. I taught my 
own S. S. lessons to the children (dolls) : I selected poems 
for them to learn or read and hymns to sing, though it was 
I who did the singing." The Episcopal form is more 
common than the Presbyterian in our returns. " It was fun 
having some of my dolls lost on their picnics." " Dolls are 
related according as they look alike." " We acted the story 
of Elsie Dinsmore with dolls." " All entertainments 
I saw we produced for dolls next day." " I put dolls 
on the treadle of the sewing machine to pretend they sewed." 
"We often had to take our do-lls out of church, they would 
not he quiet." ** My darky doll could dance a jig and sing 
Uncle Ned." " Bridget and Pat were no relation to my other 
dolls." " We often played marriages, but as we grew older 
preferred to take the character oujrselves." ** Our dolls 
were somtimes married secretly and sometimes eloped," "My 
dolls were never allowed to go to parties alone, these were 
generally for birthdays." ** When my doll came from school 
I helped her with her lessons." "My wax dolls were one 
family, China another." " My boy doll once fell in love 
with a girl doll." " I feared my dolls would catch diseases 
at school, so gave them a governess." ** My favorite doll 
was the bride and the tongs were dressed as the groom." 
" For a time all my dolls were widows." " My dolls were 
very jealous of each other's dress." " I used to have doll 
baby shows." One thinks paper dolls are not " real dolls." 



36 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



XI. Accessories, 

Counting the doll accessories, we find 179 mention 
clothes in general, 85 mention beds, 66 sets of dishes, 
59 tables, 58 chairs, 57 trunks, 40 cradles, 32 houses, 
30 bureaus, 23 toys, 23 furniture, 23 carriages, 22 
brushes, 22 combs, 21 folding beds, 20 hats, 12 stoves, 
10 shoes, 10 stockings, 10 bonnets, 9 quilts, 9 dolls* 
dolls, 9 underclothes, 9 toilet sets, 8 pianos, 7 wash- 
stands, 7 handkerchiefs, 6 cloaks, 6 chamber sets, 6 
cupboards, 6 forks, 6 jewelry, 6 knives, 6 lounges, 6 
mirrors, 6 mittens, 6 nightgowns, 6 picture books, 6 
rattles, 6 sofas, 6 waterproofs, 5 capes, S aprons, 5 
handkerchiefs, 5 swings, 5 spoons, 5 towels, 5 veils, 5 
wash-stands, 4 caps, 4 hairpins, 4 newspapers, 4 pictures, 
4 soaps, 4 wash-rags, 4 books, 4 carpets. The following 
are mentioned three times : bags, balls, bookcases, 
blankets, earrings, fans, flat-irons, jackets, kitchen sets, 
muffs, mats, overshoes, parasols, parlor sets, pencils, 
pewter dishes, money purses, rings, shawls, slippers, 
sheets. The following are mentioned twice each: 
bathtubs, blocks, bracelets, coats for boys, cribs, 
chests of drawers, candlesticks, comforters, Christmas 
trees, back combs, desks, furs, footstools, hoods, 
horses, high chairs, jardinieres, kettles, nursing-bottles, 
napkins, puff-boxes, pillows, pincushions, sacks, 
sponges, sponge-bags, table-cloths, tin kitchens, tooth 
brushes, toy dogs, toy cats, toy cows. 

The following are represented by one each : ankle 
tie, basin, bath-room, bathing suit, bloomers, bib, bol- 
ster, broom, stuffed bird, bench, blackboard, chate- 
laine bag, clothes-horse, clock, collarette, round comb, 
clothes-basket, watch-chain, clerical suit, dressing- 
gown, dog cart, dust-pan, dining set, flowers, hand- 
mirror, hanging lamp, ironing-board, invalid slippers, 
kitten, kid gloves, manicure set, necklace, piano-lamp, 
pony, pins, pans, rubber boots, ruler, rubber ring, 



Table L 



12 Boys below 6, 
K. G. Practice 
School, Boston. 

12 Girls below 6, 
Boston Practice 
School. 

44 Boys below 6, 
Worcester. 



48 Girls below 6, 
Worcester. 



50 Girls, age 6-12, 
Worcester. 

50 Boys, 6-12, 
Worcester. 

50 Girls, 6-12, Bos- 
ton Pr. School, 



50 Boys, 6-12, Bos- 
ton Pr. School. 



SHigh School 
iris, Worcester, 



I 




3 


4 


5 


5 


7 


8 


9 








16 


17 




23 


24 


25 


oft 




II 


9 


4- 


9 




3 




2 


4 




I 


6- 






3- 


4 


4 


2 








3 


5 • 


3 




5 


If 
7 




D 


3 


5 










5 






5 




II 


II 





II 




3 




3 


4 


I 




7 




•• 


3- 


8 


9 


5 


I 














/ 


3 


3 


J 


7 


7 


2 








3 






2 




35 


28 


2.8 


22 


3-3 


7 




4 


29 


13 


5 


21 


6 


I 


8- 


18 


17 


15 


I 




9 


3 


4»5 


14 


4*3 


■^4 


21 


5 


5 


18 


24 


8 


5 




4.1 


10 


13 




4 




48 


46 


2.6 


37 


3-II 


8 


12 


12 


38 


9 


3 


29 


2 




4.8 


34 


30 


23 


5 






2 




1 J 




"2/1 


8 


18 


c 
0 


DO 


39 




8 






8 




18 


3 




50 


50 


... 


45 




7 


26 


25 


47 


10 


12 


42 


25 


3 





47 


38 


40 












2 




JO 


13 


T a 


3 


40 


18 


7 


21 


4 




3 




10 






42 


27 




30 




12 


6 


10 




20 


20 


28 


19 


n 





19 


18 


22 






Q 

0 


13 




14 




tR 
10 


1 2 


15 


12 


22 


21 


17 


22 


^4 




23 


24 








49 


46 


.... 


43 




7 


18 


27 


40 


12 


9 


29 


22 


2 


.... 


42 


31 


35 






I 


3 




4 




3^^ 


Q 


15 


9 


30 


39 


T Q 


17 


I 




5 


10 


12 






34 


32 




22 




5 


9 


12 


26 


9 


9 


18 


16 


3 




24 


21 


21 






10 


4 




14 




13 


16 


8 


10 


23 


23 


12 


13 


5 




II 


14 


14 






97 


80 




89 




31 


36 


31 


82 


'5 


26 


62 


II 


12 




82 


60 


69 








17 




S 




40 


26 


41 


14 


78 


60 


23 


81 


84 




15 


34 


23 









I 


2 




/I 


c 


6 


7 


8 


0 


10 


n 


12 


16 


17 


22 


23 


24 


25 


26 


28 


29 


5 Blind Boys, av- 


3 


3 




I 







I 


3 


3 


2 




2 






I- 


3 


3 


3 


3 






erage age» 5.2. 


2 


2 


10. 


4 




4 


3 


I 


2 


I 


2 


I 


2 




5> 














4 Blind Girls, av- 


4 


4 


I. 


3 






2 


2 


4 


3 


I 


2 






3- 


4 


4 


4 


2 






erage age, 6.3. 

4S Feeble-Minded 
Girls. 






14. 


I 




3 


2 


2 




I 


3 




2 




5. 










I 


I 


45 


42 




22 




3 


12 


8 


10 


18 


5 


I 






18+ 


24 


31 


35 


28 










3.6 


18 


II. 


10 




21 


I 


26 




I 










10 


6 










3 






7 




33 






4 


15- 


7 










16 Foreign Girls. 


i6 


15 


2.7 


9 


5-5 


2 


10 


10 


16 


4 


4 


13 


6 


I 


42- 


13 


10 


II 






3 




I 


9-5 


6 


8.2 


5 


2 


4 




12 


12 


2 


9 


8 


5.5 


5 


6 


■ 5 




4 


I 


10 Foreign Boys. 


10 


c 

0 
2 


2.9 

0 . 


4 


4.0 

7.5 


5 


2 
I 


3 
0 


9 
I 


2 

Q 


3 
7 


9 
• • 


Q 

2 


I 
2 


5- 

5.0 


0 
0 

1 


9 
I 


10 


* * 


J 


2 


37 liifiniia urraae 


27 


24 


4.9 


2Q 


2. II 


26 


I 


30 


32 


II 


u 


18 


20 




3.5 




31 


26 


2 






Grammar, Boys. 


10 


9 


7. 


9 


7. 


6 




7 


5 


25 


24 


18 


6 






4 


6 


10 


4 






II Boys, 17-19 av. 












































Horace Mann 


6 


4 


3. 


4 


4.6 


I 


5 


I 


3 


3 


I 


3 


2 




2- 


4 


2 


3 


5 


I 




school for deaf and 
dumb. 


5 


7 




2 


7. 


3 


I 


2 


3 


3 


5 


3 




I 


4.3 


I 


4 


3 


I 


• • 


• • 


38 Girls, av. 13-19, 
Horace Mann 


38 


^2 


3.4 


26 


4.1 


7 


15 


7 


31 


9 


7 


20 


7 


3 


12- 


31 


21 


26 


20 




r 


school for deaf and 








1 1 


12 . 9 


19 


15 


10 


5 


20 


29 


14 


12 


14 


7- 


0 






10 




Q 


dumb. 


































Averages. 


526 


465 


3+ 


408 


3.9 


122 


160 




414 


141 


117 


310 


153 


37 




398 


339 


352 


67 


2 


4 


47 


77 


8.1+ 


126 


8.3 


252 


147 


179 


84 


364 


351 


139 


206 


138 




108 


X75 


172 


31 


15 


13 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



39 



shoe horn, satchel, pair of skates, slate, stable, stool, 
scissors, sideboard, tarn o'shanter, tent, toilet water, 
toilet basket, tins, tureen, trowsers, visiting cards, 
wraps, tennis racquet, watch, stilts, coalbox, crutch, 
medals, ledger, night-cap, wigs. 

In issuing his supplementary syllabus it was Mr. 
Ellis's intention to get lOO boys and loo girls from 
each grade to answer with a word, each of his 29 ques- 
tions. This would have given a more definite indica- 
tion of the extent of doll plays, the doll age, effect of 
sex, etc. He also sought returns from idiots, blind 
children, children of foreign birth, etc., for compara- 
tive purposes. The returns, however, have been only 
579 in all, and many of these fail to answer one or 
more questions. They have all been counted and 
most of the results incorporated in the preceding 
table ; and the rest, which could not be presented 
by this method, are inserted under their respective 
entries. 

In the above table the figures of the upper horizontal line 
designate the questions as they are numbered. in the syllabus. 
See page 131. Under each special series the upper figure 
designates the affirmative answers, the lower the negative 
answers. Thus, of the twelve kindergarten boys below six, 
eleven had played' with dolls and one had not. Under 3 
we have averaged the age of beginning and stopping doill 
play, placing the former over the latter; thus for 44 Worcester 
boys below six, the average age of beginning doll play was 
two years and eight months, and the average age of ceasing 
was four years and five months. The same method is followed 
in column 5. For question 7 the upper number designates 
whether children played with anything else ^as if it were a 
doll, and we had left it to another table to show what sub- 
stitutes were most frequent. For question 10, the upper 
figure designates alone, the lower with others. For question 
II, too, the order of words in the syllabus is followed, the 
upper figure designating old, the lower new, and in question 
12 the upper figure designates the preference for large and the 
lower small dolls. In 22 the minus sign means never played 
that dolls died, while the other figures designate the average 
age in years and months when death was played. In question 
20 the upper figure designates the number of those who- as- 



46 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



cribed any one or more of the psychic quaHties named m the 
question to doll and the lower number designates the num- 
ber of those who assigned none,, leaving it to the supple- 
mentary table to show the relative frequency of each of the 
qualities. 

From the above table it appears that of average city school 
children below 6 yrs., 82% of boys and 98% of girls hav^e 
played dolls; between 6 and 12 yrs., 76%' of boys and 99% 
of girls; of high school girls, 100%. 

Those confessing that they erver specially enjoyed doll 
play are: below 6 yrs., 77% of boys, 95% of girls; between 
6 and 12 yrs., 78% of boys, 97% of girls; of high school gi**ls, 
82%. 

Those ever having used substitutes are: below 6 yrs., 15% 
of boys, 48% of girls; between 6 and 12 yrs., 35% of boys, 
68% of girls; of high school girls, 58%. Thus girls appear 
to lead the bo3''S in every grade. Nearly fifty per cent, (^f the 
girls, and a little less of the boys, answering in all grades, 
said they loved the substitutes as much as real dolls. 

Paper dolls had been used by 73% of those below 6 yrs., 
by 80% between 6 and 12 yrs., by 92% of high school girls. 
Interest in other dolls was thought dulled by paper dolls, by 
34% of boys and 26% girls below 6, 35% boys and 15% of 
girls between 6 and 12, 44% of high school girls. 

Of all kinds of children, — blind, deaf, foreign, etc., only 
17% speak of lack of child companionship, and 72% prefer 
playing dolls in company; 38% say that love of ^ dolls grew 
out of love of real baby, and 13% transferred their doll love 
to babies; 79% had tried to feed dolls; 66% have thought dolls 
hungry; 68% have ascribed to dolls some of the psychic qual- 
ities mentioned; 67% have thought them sick. 



XII. Miscellaneous. 

Relative frequency of some forms of doll play. In 
the supplementary reports to question 27, 266 
children mention a fondness for dressing dolls; 218 
like to wash them ; 189 have a love of doll parties ; 183 
a love of , sewing for them ; 176 a love of playing 
school ; i6g a love of putting to sleep ; 137 a love of 
weddings ; 93 of tiursing ; 82 mention treating them 
as companions, telling secrets, etc. ; 79 love to feed 
them ; 49 to punish them ; 36 to play funerals. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



41 



The relations of doll and baby. If the wig comes off 
dolls they are often treated as babies ; sometimes 
they are made bald-headed to be babies. For some 
little children dolls with hair have no charm, and as 
children grow older they dislike baby dolls. Trans- 
ferrence of affection from dolls to new baby is often 
noted. Some are afraid of dolls till acquainted with 
babies, and then become very fond of them. Some 
children think babies, like dolls, are filled with saw- 
dust. Some experiment on babies, putting fingers in 
their eyes, etc., and treat them generally as they have 
been used to treating dolls. 

Paper dolls. Some children never care for paper 
dolls'; some think them best to play or act fairy 
stories. Of 27 boys aged 7 five played with and 
preferred paper dolls. Some children prefer them to 
all others and play with them longer. As children 
grow older paper dolls have a peculiar fascination. F., 
17, ended doll playing by putting her paper dolls in a 
scrap' book as a house. School, collective games and 
families are more often played with paper dolls. 

Rude and maimed dolls. If dolls lose their heads, 
eyes, or get otherwise deformed, little children are 
often afraid of them. Some are horrified if the wig 
comes off ; some Httle children fear everything in 
human shape, perhaps, till they make the acquaint- 
ance of a new baby and then love dolls. Some 
suddenly conceive life-like wax dolls as real dead 
persons and have sudden aversions for them. Some 
like to maim dolls, pulling their limbs, perhaps 
killing them, in order to have a funeral. Sometimes 
it is thought rather disgraceful to both doll and owner 
to have new heads, limbs, etc. Accidents to dolls 
sometimes cause sensitive children to faint. 

Influence of age. Very rare are those who begin 
doll play in the cradle and keep it up through life. 
The doll passion seems to be strongest between 7 and 
ID, and to reach its cHmax between 8 and 9. The 



42 A STUDY OF DOLLS* 

following curve is based on reminiscences of 98 female 
pupils in normal schools, the figures on the horizontal 
line representing the age, and the length of the vertical 
lines the number of opinions : 



4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 14 

In the supplementary papers 55 stopped playing 
dolls because they liked other things better ; 5a«ased 
to care for them without being able to give a reason ; 
46 stopped because they were too old ; 44 because too 
large; 22 because too busy and had no time; 15 
because ashamed; 11 because loved a real baby. 
Others gave their dolls away, preferred new play- 
mates, were made to stop, dolls were worn out, etc. 

Persius tells us how the young Roman girl, when 
ripe for marriage, hung up her childhood's dolls as a 
votive offering to Venus. " Veneri donatae a virgine 
puppae." Satires II, 70. 

Froude, in his life of Carlyle, tells how Mrs. Carlyle 
at the age of nine made an end of doll-play. It had 
been intimated to her, by one whose wish was law, that 
a young lady reading Virgil must make an end of doll- 
play. She decided that dolly should die like Dido, so, 
with her many sumptuous dresses, her four-post bed, 
a faggot or two of cedar allumettes, a few sticks of 
cinnamon, a few cloves, and a nutmeg, her funeral 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



43 



pyre was built, and the new Dido having placed 
herself in the bed, with help, spoke through my lips 
the last sad words of Dido the first, which I then had 
all by heart as pat as a, b, c. The doll having thus 
spoken, kindled the pile and stabbed herself with a 
penknife by way of a Tyrian sword. Then, however, in 
the moment of seeing my poor doll blaze up (for being 
stuffed with bran she took fire and it was all over in no 
time), in that supreme moment my affection for her 
blazed up also, and I shrieked and would have saved 
her and could not, and went on shrieking, and every- 
body within hearing flew to me and bore me off in a 
plunge of tears." 

Girls often play with dolls regularly until 13 or 14, 
when, with the dawn of adolescence, the doll passion 
generally abates. It is then realized more distinctly 
than before that dolls have absolutely no inner life or 
feeling. Some girls play with dolls with great 
pleasure, but secretly, till well on in the teens and 
often in the twenties, and occasionally married 
women, generally those without children, or single 
women, play with dolls all their lives. Several of our 
returns report infants as interested in dolls very early 
in life, one fully reported case at 30 days, another at 
1 3 weeks, and several cases before one year old. For 
the second year of life our reports contain about 20 
cases of developed love of dolls. Near the end of the 
second year one child was observant enough to take 
the rectal temperature of her doll. 

Doctor Fernald reports that every student, male 
and female, in the institution for the feeble-minded. at 
Waverly is fond of dolls and plays with them in 
adult life. Children too feeble-minded even to use 
articulate speech, and who are unable to distinguish 
one doll from another, still show interest in dolls and 
love to play with them. In the McLean Asylum, Dr. 
Coroles reports a few cases of the return of interest 
in doll play on the part of elderly patients. 



44 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



Miscellaneous, Some children prefer naked dolls; persist 
in playing with them in this condition, imagining that thus they 
can love them more. Some children have special aversions: 
now to dolls with brown eyes, now to light or dark haired 
dolls, those with long or short hair, etc.; some children com- 
pose stories and even poems for or about their dolls; a six 
year old boy, e. g., says : " I have a little dolly, she sits in 
a chair. Her name is Polly, and I comb her hair." " One 
doll would not stand and I was angry, knocked out its eyes 
and gave it away.'* " To tell my dolly she looks ugly makes 
her good." '* I imagined my dolly cruelly treated for what it 
never did, but loved to tease it and pretended she said bad 
words." My dolls all kept individual characteristics, often 
suggested by the faces." "I could never understand why 
dolls needed to be whipped, and thought them so good that I 
was greatly hurt when they were accused of faults." " I 
thought dolls greatly pleased with new clothes, toys, etc." 
"Some children are jealous of dolls which have more or 
better things than they have, while some wish the dolls to 
dress better than they do themselves." " Dolls with poke 
bonnets, called 'Salvation Army dolls,' in one case marked 
the rise of interest in religio>n," "The smallest doll in the 
world is no larger than a pin, and the lid of the box where 
it is a magnifying glass." " I want two dolls, one to hit and 
knock about, ajid one for walks to show, perhaps a bride 
doll." " Of 66 Edinburgh pupils an equal number preferred 
baby and large dolls." " A three-story doll house, with 
kitchen, drawing room, 4 bed rooms, 3 beds, 6 chairs, 2 pan- 
tries, 5 tables, 2 coal boxes, have helped one child very much." 
"Two children became more cleanly from bathing their 
dolls." One girl had to be stopped from nursing her doll." 
" Riding on dog and cat were great fun for some." 

Influence of Dolls on Children, All opinions received are 
rudely classified as follows : 44 adults simply report the in- 
fluence of dolls on children as good, 41 think dolls help 
parenthood, 39 think rude dolls best to cultivate the imagin- 
ation, 38 think dolls fit for domestic life, 38 think they develop 
moral qualities, 35 that they cultivate taste in dress, 35 that 
they teach to sew, 29 that they teadh tidiness, 25 like rude 
dolls best, 25 that they develop the social 'nature, 24 that 
they teach to make clothes, 24 that they teach thoroughness, 
24 report that there was no regularity in the care of dolls, 
23 thought the religious nature strengthened, 21 neatness, 
21 say dolls are better cared for if life-like, 13 better loved 
when life-like, 12 carefulness, 7 helps in care of children, 
6 think the doll passion makes no difference with children, 
6 report great regularity in care of dolls, 6 say it develops 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



45 



love of children, 6 better every way, 5 imitation is stimulated, 
4 each specify more clearly, to combine colors,, more obedient, 
kept quiet, kept out of mischief, kept from bad company, 
made more tender, more thoughtful of others, expensive 
dolls are best. Three each specify improvement in dress, 
knowledge of color, more affectionate, more orderly, more 
sympathetic, never learn anything from doll play, spells 
of regularity in caring for dolls, life-like dolls are best. Two 
each think dolls teach children to appreciate parents* care, 
make them more cheerful, help power of conversation, help 
design, teach knitting, to make patterns, more observing, 
more persevering, more stylish, more gentle, more refined, 
softening influence, dolls should be in kindergarten. One 
each think dolls help to care for baby, housekeeping, industry, 
kindness, finer senses, emodons developed, more courteous, 
teach embroidery, desire for motherhood, philanthropy, love 
of beauty, memory, mending, originality, patience, power, 
womanliness, truthfulness, keep indoors, show mother the 
child's traits, makes pure in thought, respectful, danger of 
too many accessories, harmed by too light treatment and re- 
marTcs by parents, care for doll's body helps to know and care 
for their own. 

Some individual opinions of parents and teachers are quite 
fully expressed : " they keep children from growing old; " 
" best of all is the reflex influence on the child of trying to 
teach her doll and of trying to set a good example;" "nice 
dolls make children more careful of them and they ascribe 
human qualities to them, while rude dolls that can be banged 
about and made to take any part stimulate a more elementary 
type of imagination;" "to imagine the rug an ocean and have 
a stick doll with frock that can be washed, gives the fancy 
something to do;" she learned to read in order to read her 
a story;" "I had a strong wish to be as good as I thought my 
dolls were;" " children who care least for dolls love their own 
babies most later;" " dolls hurt my health by making me sit 
indoors and care too little for the company of other children; 
but they help me put myself in my parents' place;" "'too 
fine dolls check fancy, beget restlessness and desire for every- 
thing, so there is a limit beyond which dolls should not go;" 
" when mothers fails to impress certain virtues, they need 
but to say how would you like to have your doll do it, to 
score their point;" " dolls might aid in geography, lan- 
guage, history, drawing, make visits to different countries, 
use foreign money, dress, food or be engineers, sailors, etc.; " 
" dolls might be brought to school and by teaching them 
children could learn their own lessons better ; " " doll play 
reveals character and ideas, as Plato favored getting drunk 
occasionally to show out the real character;" " excess of the 



46 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



doll pass*ioin, makes excitemetnt, nervousness, worry, and 
some girls are teased into nervousness by their brothers for 
playing dolls/' 

The number and vast variety of objects more or 
less dollified well illustrate the remark of Hugo — that 
as birds may take almost every material for a nest, so 
nothing resists the childish instinct to find or make 
dolls out of everything, and stones, books, balls, 
buttons, stove-hooks, nails, bricks, wash-boards, 
flowers, pins, articles of food, objects with ho trace of 
anything that can be called face, limbs or head, are 
made dolls. Hugo*s Cosette dressed, hugged and 
put to sleep a naked sword. Occasionally immov- 
able things like posts, stumps and even trees are 
more or less dollified. The quick imagination of 
childhood makes an eye out of .a speck or a dot, and 
perhaps imagines the other features. This instinct 
cannot be entirely explained as nascent parenthood, 
but must include some element of the widespread 
animism, if not fetichism, of children and savages. 
The valuable study of Dr. Fewkes, the Roman 
games, the Doll Feast of Japan and some of the ety- 
mologies point this way, as do, perhaps, the rare 
cases of children who make God dolls, whipping 
them for watching, etc. The fear of the spirits of 
burned dolls, of black dolls, of evil eye, and some 
forms of special aversion point the same way. As 
the optic nerve, whether heated, chilled, touched 
with chemicals or electricity, can only respond by 
giving the sensation of light, so primitive humanity 
sees personality in everything. This again is abund- 
antly proven in returns to another syllabus already 
worked up, illustrating children's feelings for inani- 
mate as well as animate nature. However discon- 
nected the words doll and idol, some psychic connec- 
tion cannot be doubted. Not only is a doll the visible 
form of a non-existent person, as in Japan, of the 
Mikado md his wife ; to Queen Victoria, of the Court 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



47 



and theatrical personages ; and to other orientals of 
ancestors, but it may represent mythological beings 
or demigods, and evil or beneficent deities. Greek 
statues of the Olympians have been called stone 
dolls, and the iconoclastic rage which destroyed many 
of them expressed the instinct of the first command- 
ment. As object lessons setting forth invisible beings 
in concrete form idolatry is perhaps as much more 
persistent than dolls, as memory of abstract is more 
persistent than that of concrete words in progressive 
aphasia, and for analogous reason. Idols may, 
perhaps, be valuable for object lessons in religioh for 
children at the low pagan state and may yet have a 
rSle to play in elementary religious training, but their 
danger is analogous in kind to that sometimes feared 
for excessive and too prolonged doll cult, viz., that it 
may arrest the higher development of parental 
instincts, check interest in free play with children, 
and place puppets and dummies where real personal- 
ities ought to be. If deities were certain to appear 
later in concrete form and break the charm of idols, 
so that the danger of forever putting an unworthy 
symbol in place of that which it symbolizes could be 
as effectually obviated as interest in " meat babies ** 
and live children were sure to supplant dolls, idolatry 
would lose its dangers. Both the psychological 
significance and the educational value of the image 
worship of the Catholic Church and of religious 
pictures, figures and of spiritual beings, are topics 
upon which carefully made home experiments and 
observations are needed and could be made, which 
would be of great value. 

The relatively small proportion of dolls which repre- 
sents infants, and the large proportion representing 
adults, shows again that the parental instinct is far 
less prominent in doll play than is commonly sup- 
posed. Nearly all the 132 dolls of Queen Victoria 
were adults and represented prominent personages. 



48 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



On every hand we see that a large part of the charm 
of doll play is the small scale of the doll world, which 
brings it not only into the limited range of the 
child*s senses and knowledge, but focuses and intensi- 
fies affection and all others feelings. A large part of 
the world*s terms of endearment are diminutives, and" 
to its reduced scale the doll world owes much of its 
charm. The cases of fear of dolls are almost always 
of large dolls, the charm of which comes out only 
well on in the doll period and as exceptions to the 
rule. Even feared and hated objects excite pleasure 
when mimicked on a small scale. Moreover, relations 
■are better seen in a world of small things. A small 
eye or mind cannot readily take in a fully dressed lady. 
Yet again a child can work its feeble will on objects 
with a completeness which is inversely as their size. 
Smallness indulges children's love of feeling their 
superiority, their desire to boss something and to gain 
their desires along lines of least resistance or to vent 
their reaction to the parental tyranny of anger. 
Maggie TuUiver drove nails through her dolFs head 
to vent her anger at her aunt, but when the reaction 
came drew them out and poulticed the wounds. 
There may be often danger in a scale too small, as 
that of Queen Victoria's dolls ranging from three to 
nine inches long, for thirty-two of which she made 
dresses, working handkerchiefs half an inch square, 
yet to make small will always be' of itself alone a 
most effective pedagogic method, and will always 
exert a potent fascination. In Japan it is a 
fashion to make everything severely small for 
children. Our returns do not show any law of 
relationship between the size of the doll and the size 
or age of the child, save that the extremes of large 
and small develop their chief charm well on in the 
doll period. Things large, like things far, fail of 
exciting interest, and of being comprehended by 
children, and are almost as effectively out of their 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



49 



range as things microseopic are for adult eyes. As 
the microscope and telescope bring minute and 
distant objects within our purview, so a doll micro- 
cosm opens up a world of relationship so large, and 
simplifies things so complex as to be otherwise closed 
to the infant mind. If we take a large view of the 
doll problem it thus comprises most of the most 
important questions of education. 

That boys are naturally fond of and should play 
with dolls as well as girls there is abundant indica- 
tion. One boy in a family of girls, or boys who are 
only children, often play with dolls to seven or eight 
years of age. It is unfortunate that this is considered 
so predominantly a girFs play. Most boys abandon 
it early or never play, partly because it is thought 
girlish by adults as well as by children. Of course, 
boy life is naturally rougher and demands a wider 
range of activities. The danger, too, of making boy 
milliners is of course obvious, but we are convinced 
that on the whole more play with girl dolls by boys 
would tend to make them more sympathetic with 
girls as children, if not more tender with their wives 
and with women later. Again, boys, as well as girls, 
might be encouraged to play with boy dolls more 
than at present, with great advantage to both. Boys, 
too, seem to prefer exceptional dolls — clowns, 
brownies, colored, Eskimo, Japanese, etc. Boys, too, 
seem fonder than girls of monkey and animal dolls, 
and are often very tender of these, when they mal- 
treat dolls in human shape. Again, dolls representing 
heroes of every kind and non-existent beings, dragons 
and hobgoblins, find their chief admirers among boys, 
A boy of six I know was fascinated with a rude 
jack-o*-lantern, would lie on the floor and talk to it by 
the hour, ask it questions and get what he deemed 
real answers, and was charmed by its horrid features. 
Boys are httle prone to doll luxury or elaborate 
paraphernalia, and are content with ruder dolls than 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



girls, and the doll function is naturally far less 
developed than with girls. 

In discussing the degree and kind of reality of the 
doll world, we approach one of the most difficult of 
psychological problems. Children seem to delight in 
giving way to illusions, and even delusions here, 
which it is extremely difficult for the adult mind to 
understand. Often in the midst of the most absorbing 
play, the slightest criticism, a word of appeal to 
reason, the most trivial fact of real life, annihilates in 
an instant the entire doll cosmos. The wedding, 
school, funeral, is unfinished, the half-dressed doll 
dropped in the most painful attitude and left in the 
cold, perhaps, for an indefinite period. Sometimes 
we see traces of a struggle almost painful between 
faith and doubt, either of which may triumph. The 
doll may have a definite personality, be a real member 
of the family and not a toy or a " hybrid between a 
baby and a fetich," be a real part of the child's self, 
be fanned, its bruises rubbed and wept over ; or, 
again, as in one case, may be the hero of a vividly 
fancied romance, lose money, work its way out west, 
become rich, travel east, be shipwrecked on a desert 
island, etc., real personalities may lose interest in 
comparison with it, and all this may be kept up with 
some consistency for years — one normal woman of 
twenty-seven, and another of forty still play with 
dolls — absorption in the play blotting out the grossest 
incongruities, the doll being a real companion and 
crony, sharing every secret and confidence in solitude 
a deux, on journeys and elsewhere, so that the child's 
psychic life seems entirely bound up with it. The 
subjective and objective, and will, feeling and know- 
ledge are strangely mixed. One child had tried all 
her life to keep her doll from knowing she was not 
alive. Dolls are buried without dying, fed without 
eating, bathed without water, now good, now bad, 
now happy, now tearful, without the slightest change, 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



the child furnishing the motive power, and all its 
moods being mirrored in alter ego. It seems to be at 
about the age of six, three years before the culmina- 
tion of the doll passion, that the conflict between 
fancy and reality becomes clearly manifest. Abandon- 
ment to the doll illusion and the length of the doll 
period seems less in the western than the eastern 
children, and decreases as dolls and their accessories 
become elaborate. With every increase of knowledge 
of anatomy or of the difference between living tissue 
and dead matter, between life and mechanism, this 
element of doll play must wane. 

Perhaps nothing so fully opens up the juvenile soul 
to the ^tduent of childhood as well-developed doll 
play. Here we see things which the childish instinct 
often tends to keep secret fully revealed. It shows 
out the real nature which Plato thought so important 
that he advised drunkenness as a revealer of char- 
acter. The doll often fears ghosts, lightning, and 
becomes conscious of sex as the child does. Flogging 
the doll for not being in the right place, being untidy, 
etc., often marks the rise of the child^s consciousness 
of order and cleanliness. Whispered confidences 
with the doll are often more intimate and sacred than 
with any human being. The doll is taught those 
things learned best or in which the child has most 
interest. The little mother's real ideas of morality 
are best seen in her punishments and rewards of her 
doll. Her favorite foods are those of her doll. The 
features of funerals, weddings, schools and parties 
which are re-enacted with the doll are those which 
have most deeply impressed the child. The child's 
moods, ideals of life, dress, etc., come to utterance in 
free and spontaneous doll play. Deaf girls teach 
their dolls the finger alphabet, blind ones sometimes 
want bandages or glasses for their dolls. I know a 
mother of a sickly child who says she can anticipate 
the symptoms of all the illnesses of her daughter 



5^ 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



because they are first projected upon the doll before 
the child has become fully conscious of them in 
herself. Children often express their own desire for 
goodies euphemistically by saying "Dolly wants it." 
Thus the individuality of children sometimes is more 
clearly revealed in the characters they give their dolls 
than than in their own traits. Long-kept dolls thus 
often grow up, as it were, with the child, their infantile 
qualities expanding into those of childhood and then 
youth. Paper dolls, often with picture food, which 
seem more ideal and more often associated with fairy 
stories, betray the evanescent stages of the doll 
psychosis as it fades into adult life. 

Is doll play an early cropping out of mother love, as 
Schneider and Victor Hugo and others think ? And 
are dolls representatives of future children ? This 
appears to be true only in a limited and partial sense, 
and we must readjust our views upon this point. 
Some mothers, very fond of their children now, 
never cared much for dolls, while many of our returns 
show that unmarried women and childless wives have 
been most enthusiastic devotees of dolls, and in such 
cases the doll cult seems often to be most prolonged. 
It also seems natural for small boys. Certainly other 
functions are more pronounced. There seems to be 
a premonition of the parental instinct in early child- 
hood which fades as the dawn of adolescence ap- 
proaches, as the foetal hair falls off to make place for a 
ranker growth much later. The saying that the first 
child is the last doll is, I believe, not true of normal 
women. The treatment of and feeling toward a doll 
and a child are more unlike than the teeth of first 
and second dentition. That the first may hyper- 
trophy and dwarf the second is undoubted. Indeed, 
it is just possible that the ideal mother never plays 
dolls with great abandon. Despite the increased 
extent of doll play, its intensity seems a little on the 
wane among the best people, and too many acces- 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



53 



sories lessen the educational value of this play in 
teaching children to put themselves in the parent's 
place, in deepening love of children, and of mother- 
hood. 

The educational value of dolls is enormous, and the 
protest of this paper is against longer neglect of it. 
It educates the heart and will, even more than the 
intellect, and to learn how to control and apply it 
will be to discover a new instrument in education of 
the very highest potency. Every parent and every 
teacher who can deal with individuals at all should 
study the doll habits of each child, now discouraging 
and repressing, now stimulating by hint or sugges- 
tion. There should be somewhere (a) a doll museum, 
(b) a doll expert to keep the possibilities of this great 
educative instinct steadily in view, and (c) careful 
observations upon children of kindergarten, primary 
and grammar grades should be instituted, as at an 
experiment station, in order to determine just what 
is practicable. Children with French dolls incline to 
practice their little French upon them ; can this 
tendency be utilized in teaching a foreign language to 
young children ? Some children read stories in order 
to tell them to their dolls, and one. learned to read by 
the strength of this motive ; with what proportion of 
children can this be helpful ? Many children learn to 
sew, knit, and do millinery work, observe and design 
costumes, acquire taste in color and even prepare 
food for the benefit of the doll. Children who are 
indifferent to reading for themselves sometimes read 
to their' dolls and learn things they would not other- 
wise do, in order to teach them, or are clean, to be like 
them. They are good to set them a good example, 
compose poetry and write compositions for them, their 
naughtiness is reduced by asking them how they would 
like their dolls to do so ; and to be as good as they think 
their dolls to be is sometimes a high ideal. Goethe 
reproduced dramas with puppets in a doll theatre, as 



54 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



several of our correspondents have done. To make 
them represent heroes in history or fiction, to have 
collections illustrating costumes of different countries, 
the Eskimo hut, the Indian teepee, the cowboy's log 
cabin, to take them on imaginary journeys with 
foreign money is not merely to keep children young, 
cheerful, out of bad company, but it is to . teach 
geography, history and morals, nature, etc., in the 
most objective possible way. Plenty of toy animals, 
figures representing different vocations and trades, 
poor and rich, etc., would be not only taking the dolls to 
kindergarten and school, but would bring rudimentary 
sociology, ethics and science in their most needed 
and effective form there, too. Dolls are a good 
school for children to practice all they know. 
Children are at a certain period interested to know 
what is inside things, especially dolls; could not 
manikin dolls be made that were dissectible 
enough to teach anatomy ? Would not dolls and 
their furnishings be among the best things to make in 
manual-training schools ? and why are dolls which 
represent the most original, free and spontaneous 
expressions of the play instinct so commonly ex- 
cluded from kindergarten, where they could aid in 
teaching almost everything ? 



XIII. Anthropological Notes. 

Doctor Gustav Schlegel writes in T'oung PaOy Vol. 
VII, No. I : 

Dolls are of recent origin in Europe, In the be- 
ginning of the XVth century, during the reign of mad 
Charles VI of France, an Italian, named Pusello, came 
from Padua to France with thirty mules packed with 
boxes and hung with jingling bells. He had in these 
boxes w^ooden images of 96 empresses and other 
celebrated women of the old Roman Empire, carved 



A STUDY OF DOLLS- 



55 



after statues and coins. He showed them everywhere, 
gaining a considerable fortune by their exposition. 
At last the counsellors of the King called him to court, 
in order to amuse His Majesty. When he came to 
the explanation of the statuette of Poppea^ who, it is 
pretended, was killed by Nero by a kick in her belly, 
the king listened with the greatest attention, and at 
last bought the statuette of Poppea for 50 Parisian 
sols, about 300 francs of present currency. The 
king's example was soon followed, and every noble- 
man bought such a little statuette ; and, as the king's 
one was that of Poppea, every one called his puppet 
Poppea, of which name the words Poppee, Poupp^e, 
and finally Poupee are said to have been derived. 

"We leave this etymology to the responsibility of 
the old chronicles and observe that it is more likely 
the word Poupee is derived from the Latin pupa, a 
girl (Comp. pupus^ a boy, pupulus, a little boy — all de- 
rived from the Skt. root push, to nourish [Pott, Ety- 
moL Forschungen, etc., Vol. I, p. 193]). However, 
it appears that such poupp^es or dolls came at that 
time in vogue as playthings for girls. 

" Children in Amoy play with solid puppets made 
of baked clay, called Hai dzi-a, or * babies ; ' and 
Douglas even quotes the saying, Kah na hai dzi-a^ 
equivalent to* our saying, * As fair as a doll,* said of a 
pretty child. 

" Puppets for theatrical performances were long 
known in China — but from these to the doll as a 
plaything for little girls is along distance, and Chinese 
girls never played with them. 

" Probably the doll, as an article to play with for 
little girls, has been equally imported into Japan by 
the Dutch." 

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes writes : " The Tusayan custom 
of giving the symbolism of a god to the doll, to which 
you refer, may be limited to that interesting people, 
but I suspect that it has a deep significance, and may 



56 



A STUDY OP DOLLS. 



show a universal relationship between child con- 
cepts and primitive social cult development. The 
Tusayan name for a doll is H/iu, personification, not 
far from eidoXov in meaning. A dramatic dance in 
which gods are personified by men (masked) is spoken 
of as tihuniy we personate (gods). I find, in studying 
the Tusayan calendar, as a whole, that dolls resem- 
bling Katcinas are made in Powamu, the February 
ceremony, as well as at Niman^ in July, and presented 
to the little girls in the same way ; * never given to 
boys. 

"Just before I left Cambridge, last November, I in- 
stalled my collection of Tusayan dolls in the upper 
story of the Peabody Museum, and if you happen 
that way, you may find it interesting to see them.f 
A few more were collected last summer, but all dupli- 
cates. I noticed last August that one Tusayan child 
had a China doll. hanging to the rafters of her mother's 
home, with her Katcina dolls, and she supposed it 
represented a Pahano (American) Katcina. 

" There is a belief current that the doll made in the 
kiva and given to the girls is an offering or prayer- 
bearer of the maker to the divinity referred to, and I 
have noticed small dolls in shops with pahos. I recall, 
as I write, a diminutive specimen on the cleft of the 
Mesa west of Walpi, where the eagle is buried. 

" The numerous references to dolls in ethnographic 
writings shed little light on the question how the 
children regard their dolls, and I fear I can afford you 



* By mothers of girls after having bartered them with Katci- 
nas. 

fThis collection of dolls, made by the Indians on sacred 
ground, as exact miniatures of their old, outgrown tribal fetiches 
and idols, is remarkably complete and interesting, as is also, in 
respect to variety, the more varied collection stuffed away in 
the Smithsonian Institute. Dr. Fewkes has in Archiv. fiir Eth., 
Vol. VII, pp. 45-73, a full account of these Tusayan dolls and 
customs, illustrated with a large number of handsome colored 
plates. 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



57 



little help. It is very difficult to draw the line be- 
tween figures used as idols and those used as dolls in 
prehistoric times. Although I found several stone 
animals in the graves of Sikyalki, a prehistoric ruin, 
three miles from Walpi, where most of my dolls were 
collected, I found no dolls there. I have an explana- 
tion for this, but highly speculative as yet. Probably 
the doll-making is a part of the Katcina cult, which is 
foreign to prehistoric Tusayan. At Court, in all the 
much decorated Sikyatki ceramic, I found no Katcina 
heads represented. Yet the archaic cults of Tusayan, 
like Lalakonti Mamzrauti^ etc., have wooden figures 
on their altars. 

"Since I wrote my doll article I have seen two 
most instructive winter ceremonials of Tusayan ritual, 
the Powamu and Palulukonti, In both of these, which 
are Katcina, tihtis (dolls) are made in the kivas. On 
the culminating days these dolls are bartered for 
food in a ceremonial way. You will find in my Snake 
Memoir (Jour. Amer. Eth. and Arch., Vol. IV), a de- 
scription of a game which occurs for four days after 
the Snake Dance. It is called Nuitiwa. This occurs 
in Powamu and Palulukonti in the Kivas, but instead 
of bowls a masked person holds up a tihu and maids 
and women struggle to obtain them, rewarding the 
men with food. The men who hold them are called 
Huhiyan or Barter Katcinas, With this new knowl- 
edge we now know of dolls made ceremonially in 
Niman Katcina — Katcinas, go home, Powamu Kat- 
cina = bean-planting, and Palulukonti — snake, sun, or 
corn-planting ceremony. Now Katcinas are, I be- 
lieve, divinized ancestors. So there is some connec- 
tion between doll cult and ancestor worship ; what ? 
quien sabe ? 

W. E. Griffis, in his " Games and Sports of Japanese 
Children,'* Tr. of the Asiatic Soc. of Japan, Vol. II, 
p. 132, 3, London, 1882, says: "On the third day of 
the third month is held the Hina matsuri. This is 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



the day especially devoted to the girls, and to them 
it is the greatest day in the year. It has been called, 
in some foreign works on Japan, the ' Feast of Dolls.' 
Several days before the niatsuri, the shops are gay 
with the images bought for this occasion and which 
are on sale only at this time of year. Every respect- 
able family has a number of these splendidly dressed 
images, which are from four inches to a foot in height, 
and which accumulate from generation to generation. 
When a daughter is born in the house during the 
previous year, a pair of hina or images are purchased 
for the little girl, which she plays with till grown up. 
When she is married her hina are taken with her to 
her husband's house, and she gives them to her chil- 
dren, adding to the stock as her family increases. 
The images are made of wood, or enamelled clay. 
They represent the Mikado and his wife ; the kuge or 
old Kioto nobles, their wives and daughters, the court 
minstrels, and various personages in Japanese mythol- 
ogy and history. A great many other toys, repre- 
senting all the articles in use in a Japanese lady's 
chamber, the service of the eating table, the utensils 
of the kitchen, travelling apparatus, etc., some of 
them very elaborate and costly, are also exhibited 
and played with on this day. The girls make offer- 
ings of sake and dried rice, etc., to the effigies of the 
emperor and empress, and then spend the day with 
toys, mimicking the whole round of Japanese female 
life, as that of child, maiden, wife, mother, and grand- 
mother. In some old Japanese families in which I 
have visited, the [150] display of dolls and images was 
very large and extremely beautiful. 

" On this day the entire female sex appear in holi- 
day attire. The whole household store of dolls, among 
which are many old family treasures, are brought out 
for the girls and set up in a special room. The living 
dolls entertain the dead ones with food and drink, the 
latter consisting, in the absence of milk, of shiro-sake 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



59 



(white sweet cake). In Kio-bashidori, at Tokio, where 
the shops are large and splendid, and some of the 
dolls expensive, there is great activity on this day. 
Formerly the * Feast of Dolls ' fell, as a rule, in April, 
when the favorite sakura trees are in blossom, and, as 
it resembles our peach tree," Europeans have named 
it the Festival of the Peach Flowers. J. J. Rein, 
"Japan: Travels and Reseaches," p. 439; London, 
1884. 

On this occasion, mothers adorn the chamber with 
blossoming peach boughs and arrange therein an ex- 
hibition of all the dolls which their daughters have 
received ; these represent the Mikado and Court per- 
sonages, for whom a banquet is prepared which is 
consumed by the guests of the evening/' Bayard 
Taylor, p. 200 ; New York, 1883. 

*'The greatest day in the year for the boys is on 
the fifth day of the fifth month. On this day is cele- 
brated what is known as the * Feast of Flags.' Pre- 
vious to the coming of the day the shops display for 
sale the toys and tokens proper to the occasion. 
These are all of a kind suited to young Japanese 
masculinity. They consist of effigies of heroes and 
warriors, generals and commanders, soldiers on foot 
and horse, the genii of strength and valor, wrestlers, 
etc. The toys represent the equipments and regalia 
of a daimio's procession, all kinds of things used in 
war, the contents of an arsenal, flags, streamers, ban- 
ners, etc. A set of these toys is bought for every son 
born in the family. Hence, in old Japanese families 
the display of the fifth day of the fifth month is ex- 
tensive and brilliant." 

In Corea, at the children's festival, which falls on 
the 8th day of the 4th month, toys are universally 
sold, the most popular being the Ot-tok-i. or erect 
standing one. This is an image made of paper, with 
a rounded bottom filled with clay, so that it always 
stands upright ; it is feminine, and has many counter- 



6o 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



parts throughout the world, and is a possible survival 
of the image of a deity anciently worshipped in Corea 
at this season, the above date being the birthday of 
Budda, and this toy perhaps having once been his 
image. Still more anciently this was the date of the 
celebration of the vernal equinox. 

In Japan, the sitting toy is made to represent the 
idol Daruma, and its name, Oki agari kobashi, means 
the little priest that rises up. They must be weighted 
to rise quickly, Tuschi-ning-yo means clay images of 
men and horses once buried with the dead to take 
the place of living sacrifices. Its French name, Le 
Poussah, is Budda, cf., Butzman. This toy, there- 
fore, is a common plaything, carved by an idol maker, 
and once an object of worship. (Abridged from a 
letter by Stewart Culin.) See also Korean Games," 
by Stewart Culin. 

M. Ollivier Beauregard in Bulletins de la Societe 
d' Anthropologic de Paris, Dec, 1894, p. 689, says 
that there are two chief theatricals of dolls in Java, 
the Topeng, mute mask, and Wayang, spectacle in 
shadow. In the latter a sort of bard rhapsodist oper- 
ates the dolls and tells them their roles of love and 
war to musical accompanittient. The dolls represent 
historical and mythological personages, and this is 
thought the best means of teaching history and en- 
forcing its morals early. The spectators are often so 
interested that they watch the play all night. These 
Javanese marionettes are of three kinds: i, very an- 
cient gods and heroes ; 2, celebrants of special festi- 
vals ; 3, common dramatic figures. This is the most 
important of the native amusements, coming at the 
time of the New Year's Feast, which, in 1890, was 
from April 2ist to May 21st. W. Basil Worsfold, in 
his A Visit to Java," says: "This is very simple 
business, beneath a Punch and Judy show in point of 
art, but the audience watch the puerile display for 
five or six hours without intermission. The theatre 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



6i 



consists of pantomimic representations, with whioh is 
mingled a ballet, the basis of which is ancient tra- 
dition." 

James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, writes : 
" Among the Mokis and Pueblo tribes, generally, dolls 
are commonly representations of mythologic charac- 
ters, and consequently have some religious signifi- 
cance. I doubt if this be the case among any other 
tribes, unless, possibly, among the totem-pole tribes 
of the Northwest coast. Among others, probably, 
and with the prairie tribes certainly, dolls are simply 
girls* toys, as with us, and have no other purpose, and 
are not used by boys. In other words, as you say, 
their use is from ' a common human instinct.* The 
Kiowas, with whom I am most closely associated, 
have a religious dread of making tangible representa- 
tion of mythologic beings. Little girls frequently 
carry and dress up puppies as dolls. Boys never play 
with dolls. Girls ^ play house ' with their dolls, as 
with us/* 

He adds : With Kiowas and other prairie tribes, 
dolls are simply girls' TOYS. The dolls represent both 
sexes, but, so far as my observation goes, are used 
only by girls. Indians lay great stress upon manly 
distinctions, and boys and girls rarely use the same 
toys or games," 

R. J. Dodge, in Our Wild Indians, p. 190, says : 

The little Indian girls are very fond of dolls, which 
their mothers make and dress with considerable skill 
and taste. Their baby houses are miniature teepees, 
and they spend as much time and take as much pleas- 
ure in such play as white girls.** 

Speaking of Eskimo toys, sledges, and dolls, Dr. 
Boas says : " The last are made in the same way 
by all the tribes, a wooden body being clothed with 
scraps of deer skin cut in the same way as the cloth- 
ing of men.** Rep. Bureau Eth., 1884-85, p. 571. 

" The Seminole has a doll, Le., a bundle of rags, a 



62 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



stick with a bit of cloth wrappea about it, or some- 
thing that serves just as well as this. The children 
build little houses for their dolls and name them 
* camps/ Clay MacCauley, Rep. Bureau Eth., 
i883''84. 

We see thus that among the Pueblo Indians, the 
Koreans and Chinese, dolls are exact imitations in 
miniature of old tribal fetiches or idols no longer 
worshipped, made or sold on a special feast day, or 
given only to girls with formal ceremony. Among 
the Pueblos this day was the primitive corn feast. 
Among the Koreans and Chinese it was the day once 
celebrated as the birthday of Budda. In both these 
languages the word for doll is from the same root as 
the word for fetich or idol. In Japan, at a yearly 
feast, all the dolls of many generations are present, 
and the living dolls entertain the dead ones. Again 
it is possible that the ancient custom of Roman maid- 
ens of hanging up their dolls to Venus when they 
loosed their girdles, was primitively a religious rite of 
consecrating play-children to the goddess of fecundity. 
Still, in most languages the words for fetich and for 
doll have at best only a secondary connection, and 
that doll play is degraded fetich worship is certainly 
unproven. The exact origin and meaning of the 
Lares and Penates is too uncertain to base argu- 
ment upon. 

Dolls are found buried along with the children in 
the sarcophagi of the ancient Egyptians. A little girl 
figure was found in one of the buried cities with a doll 
clasped to her breast. 

Baring Gould, in his Strange Survivals, p. 139, 
London, 1892, says: "A white marble sarcophagus 
occupies the centre of one of the rooms in the base- 
ment of the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The sarco- 
phagus contains the bones and dust of a little girl, and 
by the side is the child's wooden doll, precisely like 
the dolls made and spld to-day. In the catacombs of 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



63 



St. Agnes, one end of a passage is given up to the 
objects found in the tombs of the early Christians, 
and among these are some very similar dolls taken 
out of the graves of the Christian children." 

W. H. Holmes, Bureau Eth. Rep., 1884-5, P- ^S^, 
thinks that dolls found with other relics in graves in 
the province of Chiriqui were possibly toys, but more 
probably tutelary images. 

Miss Alice Fletcher writes : '* Among the Indian 
tribes with which I am familiar there is no special 
treatment of dolls. All depends upon the particular 
child*s imagination and imitative powers. 

" As far as my observation goes, and I can learn, 
the religious ceremonies of the tribe are not mimicked, 
although some of the practices of the same are. The 
religious rites of the white race are reproduced by the 
children. As far as I can yet discover, there is no 
relation between dolls and a fetich or any emblem." 



XIV. Etymological Notes. 

Doll, says the Century Dictionary, is certainly not 
derived from idol, and suggests its derivation from a 
playful contraction of Dorothy. Other lexicograph- 
ers agree, suggesting possible derivations from Old 
Dutch dol^ a whipping top ; or dollen, to rave. No- 
where is there any certainty as to its derivation. 

Skeat (Etymological Die, p. 176) says: " Doll, a 
child's puppet (Dutch), originally a plaything. Old 
Dutch dol, a whipping top. Compare Dutch dollen 
to sport, be frolicsome. From the same root as 
Dutch dol (English dull), mad. Compare provincial 
Eng. Doil^ strange nonsense ; dold^ stupid : dale^ mad, 
dalicsy a child's game. 

Doll, properly a bunch of rags. Frisian dok, Ger- 
man docke ; a little bundle as of thread, a wisp of 
straw, also a doll ; Swabian ddckle^ a doll ; dokheln, to 



64 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



play with a doll. Banff (Scotland), doll^ a large lump 
of anything. So in Finnish mippUy a flock, rag, patch. 

Trench says that doll is not found in English before 
the time of Dryden. 

Nukki, nukety a doll, lusoria puellarum ex panni- 
cutis, 

Kopai = dolls made of clay and painted, cf. Plato's 
Theat., p. 136. Demosth., Fil. i, p. 47. Only late 
writers mention wax. These clay figures were not 
merely children's dolls (also called vvpi^ai), but also 
images of all sorts. 

Aayvz a wax doll. Theoc. 2, no, used in magic 
rites ; a puppet was probably an Oriental word, 
TtXayyoov also = wax puppet, doll. 

Pupa in Latin means a girl, then a puppet doll. 

Prof. Toy states :^ In the Semitic languages there 
is no connection between words for doll and fetich^ 
deity, etc. In the ancient (pre-Christian) Semitic 
languages, we know of no word for doll. Arabic (and 
so Persian) has a word which me3.ns plaything (from 
verb play). If there was ever such connection in these 
languages it has vanished." 

In T'oung Pao, Dr. Gustav Schlegel says that 
" dolls of great variety exist in Japan, and are im- 
ported into Amoy, where they bear the name of tsit 
sien i-a, after the name of the Buddhist idols called 
tsit sien put, which Mr. Douglas translates by * solid 
image.' " (Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect, p. 388 A). 
(Dr. Schlegel thinks stuffed image " a better trans- 
lation.) In Canton these foreign dolls are called 
Kung tsai or Yeung P'osat; i.e., * Western idols' 
(Bddisattras), which latter name clearly shows where- 
from dolls have been introduced into China. The 
dolls made by the Korean girls strongly remind us of 
the English doll, which properly meant a bunch of 
rags.' " 

In Frisian they were called dok — German docke ; 
in Swabian deckle. King John says : 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



** If I were mad I should forget my son, 
Or madly think « babe of clouts were he," 

Doctor Gatschet writes : " In the Nahuatl there 

were and are two terms for doll, nenetl and quauh- 
cococo-netl. Nenetl means (i) the nature of woman 
(vulva); (2) idol; (3) doll Any one who saw the 
most ancient figurines of stone or clay representing 
doll and idols, or rather caricatures of them, from 
ancient Greek, Asiatic, Syriac and other Oriental 
graves, must have been struck by the constancy by 
which the vulva is represented there, in large and 
sometimes enormous proportions. This recalls the 
nenetl as above. Quauhcococonetl is composed of 
quauitl pieces of wood, block, stick, and of conetl 
offspring, girl or boy; a word principally used by 
women. 

" In one of the Algonquin languages, studied by 
me, doll is the same word as baby. Was it Shawnee ? 

In our Cree, Ojibwe, and Delaware dictionaries, 
doll is not mentioned at all. 

" In Hidatsa or Minnitari, Upper Missouri River, 
doll is makadishtake ; here kadista is small ^ little ; 
makadista, young person, or child ; — ke instrumental 
suffix. The whole word thus means : * what is used 
by a young person.* 

" In Klamath and Modoc, of Oregon, amash is doll, 
for which I know no derivation. 

" The Blackfoot language has atunskdn, plur. (dolls) 
atunskaniks. (Rev. Tims, Gram, and Vocabulary, 
p. 127.) 

" The Micmac has for doll amsudagan, spelt by 
S. T, Rand amsoodaagun. The ending gun is the 
well-known Algonquin instrumental suffix — agan — 
hagan, etc., — ikan. 

" In the Tonkaway language doll is ya'kwenan, 
literally, ' something made,' either manufactured ob- 
ject, or manufactured person or animal, likeness of 
such one 



66 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



The Passamaquoddy word for doll, which is 
ampskudahekan, and the plural ammpskudahekanek,, 
literally means figure of picture as made on wood and 
other substance ; in this instance there is no connec- 
tion with the word of God, supreme being or idol/' 

Porf. Edward S. Morse writes : " There is no rela- 
tion between idol and doll in Japanese. Ningio = 
doll, nin — human, gio image. Guzo — idol, gu = 
image, and zo = figure, Omamosi = fetich = honor- 
able guard or Kami = God, literally upper, anything 
superior ; even the government is called Kami." 

Dr. D. G. Brinton writes : " In the few languages 
in which I have compared the words, I do not find a 
common radical to the word for doll and for divinity. 
Thus in the Micmac dialect of the Algonquin, we 
have for doll amsoo-daagan, which has no relation to 
manto, but rather with ris, me-tauagan, a plaything 
from the verb to p!ay. In the Nahuatl, doll is ' quauh- 
cococonetl,' and * nenetl.* The former word means 
* little child of wood ' ; the latter, * little idol or 
image.' ^ Nenetl ' is originally the female generative 
organ, and by transfer the neonatus or little creature 
which comes from it ; hence * conetl/ male or female 
infant. The words have nothing to do with * teotl,' 
divinity. 

" While certain dolls may be made in the image of 
fetiches or idols, the sentiment of playing with dolls 
seems altogether too spontaneous and independent to 
have been derived from ceremonies." 

Dr. Franz Boas writes : " In the languages with 
which I am familiar, and so far as I am able to look 
into my material at present, the word for doll means 
^ figure of a man ' (Eskimo), or * carving/ or figure, 
or something of that sort, inuyak (Eskimo) doll, 
K*ek (Kwakiutl) doll — carving." Lucian M. Turner, 
Bureau EthnoL Rep., 1889-99, P- ^9^9 gives the 
meaning of the Eskimo word for doll, inug-wak, as 
little man. Dr. Boas says : " The Eskimo do not 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



67 



make images of the tornait or other supernatural 
beings in whom they beheve," yet they play dolls. 

Miss Alice Fletcher writes : In the Omaha lan- 
guage, the word applied to doll is the same as that 
signifying a child, with the addition of the word sig- 
nifying clay. This composite word probably has 
come into use from the dolls furnished by traders, 
these having composition heads. The word, however, 
is now generally applied to all kinds of dolls, even 
those made of rags, and sticks and corn cobs. Children 
frequently make clay images and play with them. I 
have some curious specimens in my collections. 

The Dakota word is of similar construction to the 
Omaha, meaning literally made-boy. The Omaha 
name is Zhingazhinga-wathathun, child-clay, Dakota : 
Ho-ksin-ka-ga-pi, boy or child, made or cut out." 

Mr. Moonly writes: 'In Kiowa, god is dakra, doll 
IS heni. Dakia is from daiy ' medicin,' * sacred/ etc., 
kia * man.' Heni is not clear, but the i is a suffix 
signifying child, offering, or little. I do not know 
the Cherokee name for doll, but it is not adawehi, 
signifying a ' supernatural being,' nor is it anything 
similar.'* 

During the two years that have intervened since 
the first syllabus was issued this subject has steadily 
grown in both interest and importance, to the editors' 
minds, until this paper seems but the faintest and 
feeblest beginning of the many more special investi- 
gations that ought to be made in its field. Where 
could the philologist, e. g., find a richer field for the 
study of the principle of analogy, the law of diminu- 
tives, and of conferring names generally, and I know 
not what else, than in a far more extended and sys- 
tematic investigation of dolls' names? The whole 
subject of idolatry, the use and psychology of images 
and pictures of God, Christ, angels, saints, etc., sug- 
gests, but only begins to reveal its richness here. 
When we reflect on the r61e that tutelary and ances- 



68 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



tral images, puppets, heroic and mythological dolls 
have played in the past, the question must force itself 
upon our minds whether not only some well-devised 
form not only of image worship, but even of fetichism, 
might not be made as helpful in early religious as 
object lessons have been in secular education since 
Comenius. We do use pictures and statuettes of 
classical mythology to great advantage ; are we now 
advanced and strong enough to utilize the powerful 
instinct of idolatry still further, so as to get its 
stimulus and avoid its great and obvious dangers ? 
Children's ideas of life, death, soul, virtue and vice, 
disease, sickness, all the minor morals of dress, toilet, 
eating, etc., of family, state, church, theology, etc., 
are all as open as day, here, to the observer, and, al- 
though unconcious to themselves, almost anything 
within these large topics can be explored by the ob- 
serving, tactful adult, without danger of injuring that 
naivete of childhood which is both its best trait and 
its chief charm. What topic yet proposed for child- 
study is not, at least in part, illustrated here ? 

Imperfect as this study is, however, alas for the 
tact and intuitive power of the parent and kinder- 
gartner that does not find in the children's and 
mother*s records above a wealth of helpful and im- 
mediately practical suggestion for their daily task of 
unfolding childhood from within. We have carefully 
refrained from psychologic or pedagogic generaliza- 
tions, which have been often very tempting, because 
the time has not come for conclusions or specific rules 
of application yet. Prematureness and rashness here 
would involve danger of great harm. But, as further 
researches are needed on the scientific side, special 
studies on the practical side are no less desiderated. 
All readers, therefore, who have used or shall use 
dolls in the nursery, kindergarten, Sunday or day 
school, or anywhere else, and find ways of making 
them a help in any church or school study, in causing 



A STUDY OF DOLLS. 



69 



children to be more tender, obedient, neat or other- 
wise better, will confer a favor by forwarding to the 
Pedagogical Seminary anything written or printed, 
or otherwise descriptive or illustrative of such work. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Beauregard, M. Ollivier. Bulletin de la Soci6t6 d'Anthro- 

pologie, Paris, No. 10. Dec, 1894. 
Griffis, W. E. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. 

Vol. II, p. 132-3. London, 1882. Games and Sports of 

Japanese Children. 
ScHMiD, Dr. K. A. Encyklopedie des gesammten Erziehungs — 

und Unterrichts wesens. III, Goethe-Kindheit. 
Lazarus, Dr. M. Ueber die Reize des Spiels. 
Von Victor Blutgen. " Der Zinn Soldat." ** Oesterreichis- 

cher Gugendfreund," Die Alte Standuhe. 
Chambers' Journal, Nov. 12, iSSi. Doll Philosophy, Feb., 188S. 
St. Nicholas, August, 1888, Sept. 1881. How to make Dolls of 

Corn Husks and Flowers. Consult index for other ref- 
erences. 

Low, Francis H. Queen Victoria's Dolls. London, 1894. 
FouRNiER, EdouArd. Histoire des jouets et des jeux d'cnfants. 
Paris, 1889. 

26th Report of the Pedagogical Museum, St. Petersburg, 1888-9, 
contains reports on the Toy Exhibitions there. 

ScHLEGEL, Dr. Gustav, in the T'oung Pao, Vol. VII, No i, 
iBg6. 

Fewkes, J, Walter. Dolls of the Tusayan Indians. Archiv 

fUr Ethnographic, Vol. VII, pp. 45-73- 
L'Evolution de I'enfant. Compayr6. Paris, 1893. Chapter on 

les jeux. (273.) 

Studies of Childhood. Sully. New York, 1896. See index for 
many references, especially account of George Sand's doll 
experiences. 

Conversations, litterair^s et morales. H. Rigault. Nouvelle 

6dition, 1882, p. 5. 
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought. A. F. Chamberlain. 

New York and London, 1896. 
Psicologia del Bambino. Lombroso, p. 126, 
Histoire de ma vie. George Sand. 
L'Art et la Po6sie chez I'enfant. Perez, p. 28, 
Origin of Civilization. Sir John Lubbock. Appendix, p. 521. 
Buch der Kindheit. Goltz. 

Les jouets d'enfants, H. Rigault, 1858. (He says : ** La 
Prusse est d6cid6ment la premiere puissance militaire pour 
les soldats de plombj") 



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